INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SETS OF NEW YORK THEATRE

Many theatrical set designers today follow the maxim of ‘less is more’, but in the old days when theatres had to compete with moving pictures, plays frequently featured elaborate and extravagant sets built with great attention to detail. Pictures of theatrical productions in Broadway, New York from the early 20th century show how meticulously designers worked to create a make-believe world on stage.

In those days, Vandamm Studio, run by the indefatigable husband and wife team of Florence Vandamm and George R Thomas, better known as Tommy Vandamm, was the goto studio for performing arts photography. Florence was originally from England, where she and her American husband Thomas together owned a fashion studio. When the financial depression hit in 1923, they emigrated to New York City, where they managed to acquire work, originally as back-up photographers for the Theatre Guild. Within two years, Vandamm Studio surpassed every photography studio in New York in reliability, efficiency and quality.

For the next three decades, the tireless husband-wife duo chronicled over two thousand Broadway shows accounting for the bulk of New York’s theatrical history.

Florence did portraits of the theatrical performers in costume, while her husband did production shots, usually taken after the final dress rehearsal of a production. His shots were noteworthy for the clarity with which they showed the focus of stage action. When Tommy Vandamm died in 1944, Florence took over production shooting until 1950, when she retired leaving behind an incredible visual record of American theatre.