Many a young artist has aspired to follow in the footsteps of the late, great Al Hirschfeld, but there’s really no way anyone could. His was a singular talent; no one could capture the spirit of a performance or personality in a line the way Hirschfeld could, and no one ever will. But his career also had no precedent. He happened into a job drawing for The New York Times, and, unexpectedly, serendipitously, it fit, so well, in fact – for him and the paper – that, boom, it became his career.
Michael Arthur knows the feeling. Like many grads from the UT Department of Theatre & Dance, he took his degree and headed for New York to work in theatre. But the work he got was not what he expected. He was hired to sit in rehearsals and draw what was going on around him. Arthur had long done this for his own amusement, but then some people affiliated with some rather distinguished performing arts companies saw his drawing and wanted him to record his impressions of their rehearsals in pen and ink – for pay. Before long, this became, quite improbably, a professional career. He has drawn for the Broadway productions of Follies, 45 Seconds From Broadway, and the 2003 revival of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring Whoopi Goldberg. He has drawn for the off-Broadway company the Drama Dept., for American Ballet Theatre, Parsons Dance Company, the Buglisi/Foreman Dance Company, and, for two years now, the Martha Graham Dance Company, capturing in line that troupe’s journey out of that courtroom, where it had to fight for the rights to the dances its founder choreographed, and back into the concert hall. When the Graham Company comes to Austin next week to perform, Arthur will present the first public display of his artwork for the troupe in Bass Concert Hall March 1 and 2.
Arthur’s work bears no resemblance to that of Hirschfeld, but the eminent caricaturist – who met Arthur and not only saw his work but spoke very approvingly of it – would no doubt be pleased that someone else was enjoying such an unlikely life, making lines dance in the dark of a theatre.
This article appears in February 25 • 2005.