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The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts > Exhibitions In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights by Ken CollinsFrom January 15, 2008 through March 8, 2008
Plays tell stories, and photographs tell stories. The words of a play begin on the page and come alive in real time with real people. That relationship created between the people onstage and those in the audience is an intimate one. Photography, I feel, works the same way, though in the opposite direction—capturing real people in real time, the image on the page creates an intimate experience for the viewer. I am completely enchanted by the passion, intellect, and grace of the playwrights who welcomed me into their homes. As a photographer, I could not have asked for better subjects. They wear their lives and their choices on their faces. To become a playwright is a leap of faith, and while these artists have achieved so much, they maintain enormous humanity and humility. That’s what I wanted to capture, and why I chose to photograph them as people, not as “personalities.” I wanted to invite the viewer in, to recreate the sensation of close contact found in the theatre, and, as best I could, to tell each person’s story. – Ken Collins The 45 photographs on display are selected from In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights (Umbrage Editions, 2006). Quotations are excerpted from longer interviews, conducted by Victor Wishna, in that book. The playwrights represented here live in The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts through published scripts on the Circulating Drama Collection shelves (on the 2nd floor) and in archival materials in the research divisions on the 3rd floor. |
