NYPL for Performing Arts to Feature Work by Joan Marcus and Carol Rosegg

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center will highlight the theater photography of Joan Marcus and Carol Rosegg in a new exhibition, which will be open May 1-September 28. The show, entitled Photo Call: The Theater Photos of Joan Marcus and Carol Rosegg, will feature photography from the archives that are part of the Billy Rose Theatre Division at the Library for the Performing Arts.

Curated by Doug Reside, the Lewis and Dorothy Cullman Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division, in collaboration with the photographers, the exhibition presents an extensive selection of the many theater productions Marcus and Rosegg have photographed over the past four decades, such as Avenue Q, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Finding Neverland, Hamilton, Les Misérables, The Lion King, Wicked, and more of Broadway and off-Broadway’s biggest hits since the 1980s. The exhibition demonstrates the vast breadth of their work and captures the photographers’ transition from analog to digital photography.

Photo Call: The Theater Photos of Joan Marcus and Carol Rosegg is the first major exhibition of their photographs. Digital projections and newly made photographic prints are accompanied by video commentary about the images taken by the two photographers who shared a Chelsea studio for many years while building their separate careers.

Since its origin in 1931, the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the Library for the Performing Arts has actively acquired theatrical photography and now houses one of the largest such collections in the world. The exhibition places Rosegg and Marcus among the other major theater photographers of Broadway history, including Martha Swope, Kenn Duncan, Friedman-Abeles, and Florence Vandamm.

Photo Call is made possible by the Schloss Family Foundation, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, Margot Astrachan, Jenna Segal, Henry Tisch, Daryl Roth, and the Theater Committee.