“Do whatever you can to get into the rooms you want to be in,” is Broadway photographer Jenny Anderson’s advice for budding imagemakers. Anderson grew up loving the theater because her mom was a performer and teacher. “I wasn’t exactly up for the spotlight,” though, she says, and soon realized her way in was through photography.
In college, she joined the newspaper staff with one aim: to take photos of the theater department. “However, the paper didn’t really cover theater in the way I wanted to,” she says. “So, I made sure they did.” She asked her advisors and professors if she could bring her camera backstage and into tech rehearsals to capture those behind-the-scenes images.
After college, she brought that same determination to her position as a photographer with Broadway.com in New York City. Wanting more photos of the backstage action, she asked the higher-ups for access. “It wasn’t the photography they had on the website before,” she says. “My entire career has been because I constantly asked to be in spaces I wasn’t exactly being invited into. I begged, really.”
After 18 years photographing backstage on Broadway, Anderson recently published a collection of her behind-the-scenes photos, “The In-Between: Intimate and Candid Moments of Broadway Stars” (Bloomsbury), which features a foreword by actress Ariana Debose. “I’ve always had it in my head that I wanted to put a book together ... when I felt I had a collection of work I was proud of,” Anderson says. That time has come, in large part because she took her own advice: “Reaching out and asking and shooting your shot is the only way in.”
Amanda Arnold is a senior editor.
Tags: documentary photography
