Native photographer honored for chronicling eight years of youth theater

Encore Stage & Studio final week paid tribute to native photographer Cindy Kane, who for many of the previous decade has chronicled its youth-theater performances.

Kane has proved “very special to our organization,” Encore government director Sara Duke mentioned in a presentation held July 18 throughout intermission of “The Addams Family” at Thomas Jefferson Community Theatre.

“She does amazing work,” Duke mentioned, in creating “some really beautiful images that capture the mission” of youth theater.

Kane is stepping again from chronicling every manufacturing, having been the nonprofit’s photographer since a 2018 production of “Ghostchasers.”

“She started with a spooky show and ended with another spooky show,” mentioned Aileen Pangan Christian, who as Encore’s director of promoting and design has labored extensively with Kane in recent times.

Madaline Langston, Encore’s director of programming, mentioned Kane has “the extraordinary ability to capture moments in time — tell stories and evoke emotions.”

“This gift of blending your eye and heart creates stunning work that inspires us all,” Langston mentioned.

Kane started working with the group when her daughter Juliette, then about 8 years previous, started performing with Encore. The circle continued till this summer time when Juliette — a 2026 Washington-Liberty High School graduate — carried out because the bride ancestor in “The Addams Family.”

“Everyone I’ve photographed feels like family,” mentioned Kane, whose Cindy Kane Photography focuses on occasion and portrait pictures throughout the metro space.

Encore’s workers “really, really care so much” about nurturing the abilities and development of youth, she mentioned. “Our kids are so fortunate, and so was I.”

It’s not arduous to get Encore’s performers to have interaction with the digicam, Kane informed ARLnow. “They want to be there,” she mentioned.

Kane has additionally been lively in chronicling the evolution of the Langston Blvd hall in recent times.

She was the coauthor of the not too long ago printed “At the Heart of Langston,” a 56-page ebook that accompanied the “Look, An Unexpected Arts Experience” group arts initiative sponsored by the Langston Boulevard Alliance.

Encore Stage & Studio this month marks its sixtieth anniversary, having begun life because the Children’s Theatre, a program of the Arlington County authorities. Its first manufacturing, “A Pocketful of Preposterous Poems,” was staged at Lubber Run Amphitheater in late July 1966.