Most of you on the web know me best as “that guy who draws the ADDANAC CITY comic strip series“. Although I totally love Hank and his pre-adolescent gang of dysfunctional misfits, I’m an artist at heart and there are other things that I do in the visual realm.

A few years ago, I became involved with my local theater group, Halifax County Little Theatre. These nice people gave me an opportunity to act for the first time (I’ll have to blog about that on another occasion). I played Walter Lee Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin In The Sun”. Anyway, being that I am a well-rounded artist, I enjoyed my time as a thespian (no, I don’t have a lisp). Also, being that I am a controlling megalomaniac, I had to design the playbill, too.

I began a wonderful relationship with the directors and producers of these plays and they started requesting my artistic skills to promote their performances. One recent project that I worked on was designing something eye-catching for “Escanaba In Da Moonlight”. This was a play originally written, produced, and directed by Jeff Daniels (yeah, that Jeff Daniels). “Escanaba” is a play about a man and his three sons who journey to their camp for the opening day of hunting season in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. Strange things happen during their excursion. I came up with a pretty nifty design that they loved. This is it.

I stopped by the rehearsals with my trusty digital camera and took photographs of all the actors in the production. I wanted to create something that was true to HCLT’s unique performances, so I made each character resemble the respective actor. I think I did a competent job. Most of the organization’s play posters are printed in black and white, so I had sorta limited creative freedom. It was different without having all of the magnificent, vibrant colors that I get to play with while creating my ADDANAC CITY comics.

The local theatre group that I do a lot of graphic work for recently held a production of the 50′s-style musical Forever Plaid.

I attended a performance this past Sunday, and I’ve gotta say, the Halifax County Little Theatre did a bang-up job. I really enjoyed the music, and the acting was superb.

This is the playbill I designed for the production.

I’ll be posting some more samples of the work I do for them in the near future. I’ve completed three other posters for the organization, and hopefully, there will be another coming soon.

I designed this poster for the play “Lying In State” which held performances in February ’08. I like pen and ink cross-hatching and drawing on paper. Most of my clients who request art like this are surprised to find out that I also create a webcomic. I guess the joke’s on them, huh? I hope you like this design.

This is another design I created for the play version of the popular Frank Capra holiday classic film. I really dig working with the theatre. Maybe, one day soon, I’ll blog about my stint on stage.

See? Told ya I was versatile.