Work of Broadway Photographers Joan Marcus and Carol Rosegg Now Publicly Available at the Library for the Performing Arts

The Billy Rose Theatre Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has made the archives of Joan Marcus and Carol Rosegg publicly accessible. The collected work by the prominent theater photographers was acquired in 2018. It represents one of the largest digital acquisition of photography ever made by the Library.

Marcus and Rosegg will take part in a live discussion with theatre reporter Roma Torre on Monday, September 12th at 6pm at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in the Bruno Walter Auditorium.

Marcus and Rosegg, close friends who shared a studio running parallel businesses for two decades, captured images of the majority of Tony Award-winning and Pulitzer Prize-winningproductions in New York and across the country since 1980, and have shot hundreds of studio and location portraits of actors and other theater artists.

Marcus began her career photographing productions at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, as well as other theaters in the nation's capital. After moving to New York in 1992, she began working on Broadway, and at leading institutional theaters in the city. Some of the original Broadway productions in her collection, and for which she is best known, include, Angels in America, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, The Book of Mormon, Wicked, RENT and Hamilton.

Rosegg started off as Martha Swope's assistant during the heyday of Swope's career. Michael Bennett, George Balanchine, Bob Fosse, Martha Graham were all alive and working-Swope photographed them all, and Rosegg became a part of this theater history. Throughout her time with Swope, Rosegg shot on her own such theater companies as New York City Opera, Vineyard Theatre, Irish Repertory Theatre-from off-off Broadway to one-act festivals to touring and Broadway productions. Rosegg established her own practice in 1994.

The acquisition of these two archives continues the Billy Rose Theatre Division's tradition of collection theatre photography, maintaining our position as perhaps the largest collection of this material in the world. That collection of theatre photography includes archives as early as Lucas White starting in the 1910s, Vandamm, Friedman-Abeles, Kenn Duncan, and Martha Swope.

An exhibition at the Library for the Performing Arts highlighting selections of the work is scheduled for 2024.

Joan Marcus

Joan Marcus is one of the preeminent theatrical photographers working in the US today. Over the past 40 years she has photographed over 500 shows on and off Broadway and regionally. She began her career in Washington, DC, printing photographs for the photographer at the Kennedy Center where she realized that performing arts photography was her calling. She honed her skills shooting shows at Arena Stage, Shakespeare Theatre, Wooly Mammoth as well as the Kennedy Center before moving to New York City. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Marcus graduated from George Washington University. In 2014, she received a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre.

Carol Rosegg

Carol Rosegg grew up in Prairie Village, Kansas. After attending Tufts University, she moved to New York City in the late 1970s. Rosegg assisted Martha Swope in photographing Broadway shows, as well as dance companies, and press opportunities. Swope became Rosegg's mentor, teacher and friend and opened the door to her career. Since then she has photographed extensively in New York City and many regional companies. She has covered all types of theatre from children's theatre, including ArtsPower and Making Books Sing, to teaching institutions, like Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University, to many Off and Off-Off Broadway companies, such as, Vineyard, Irish Rep, Theatre Breaking Through Boundaries, and York Theatre Company.

To post a comment, you must register and login.