The art of theater poster design is inextricably linked to its commercial appeal:
“I must distill a two-and-a-half hour stage production into an image that is memorable and eye-catching, but most of all serves as an effective selling tool,” says designer Frank Ferlizzo, aka Fraver.
This distillation is a tricky business, as press agent Susan L. Schulman observes.
“It can’t give away too much but just enough to intrigue.”
Below are nine classic posters by a range of artists, and, below that, nine more by Fraver; click on these for his explanations of them, taken from his recent memoir.
Fraver, 1978: “I grabbed a small office mirror, propped it up on my desk and drew a sinister-looking graphic version of my eyes” — at the last minute coloring them blue.
Inspired by the cave painting of Simba in the animated film and by the Broadway show’s costume and scenic design sketches, Fraver drew more than 50 versions of Simba’s head, until Disney animator Hans Bacher distilled the image into “the woodcut-like icon still used in advertising the show.”
For this, his favorite musical, Fraver was directed to make it feel like a travel poster. “Throughout the King and I poster history, I always felt that the lead character of the schoolteacher was shortchanged. The focus is always on His Majesty. Here I bring Mrs. Ann front and center along with a gilded symbol of Siam.”
For this poster of this 2004 play, Fraver was inspired by the movie poster designer Saul Bass, who designed the famous posters for Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Anatomy of a Murder and West Side Story
The advertising agency entertained almost 100 concepts for the poster for this Sondheim musical before settling on Fraver’s, based on an old woodcut. Sondheim’s final suggestion: “Add more blood.”
For this play about a hospital patient, the producers wanted something hopeful and upbeat, not depressing. “In my design I chose to focus on the white tiles one finds in most hospitals. These blocks were then pieced together to form the portrait” — first of star Tom Conti and, then, of his replacement a year later, Mary Tyler Moore.
Carrie lyricist Dean Pitchford sees this Fraver poster for the 2012 Off-Broadway production as capturing the duality of the show — the mysterious figure with tense shoulders and claw-like hands, the long shadow she cast, the flames; but on the other side, the vibrant colors, the title looking like the graffiti on a high school gym locker — and the “giddy mirror ball” on top.
Barrow Street Theater’s founding producer Scott Morfee: In Fraver’s artwork for Our Town, “It’s the “O” as the moon that moves the needle; it is subtle, peaceful and notes Wilder’s fascination with the sun, the moon and the stars –all major elements in his masterful play.”
