There They Are! Their Visual Chronicler Is The First Major Death Of 2017!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 Yes, darlings, that is Donna McKechnie and the Original Cast of "A Chorus Line."  The one who captured this shot, photographer Martha Swope, died yesterday, of Parkinson's, at 88.

                                   Ever since Jerome Robbins invited her, in 1957, to shoot rehearsals for "West Side Story," she was on the beat for many of Broadway's best musicals, most memorable to me were not only Michael Bennett's 1975 triumph, but "Annie," and "Evita."

                                     What Walter Kerr did with words, Martha Swope with photos--painting imagery that became so iconic, the viewer felt as if he/she was actually seeing the show.  Many times I saw Swope's photos before I saw the show, and marched into the theaters, thinking, "They (the shows) better look as good as he made them appear."  They always did.

                                       Martha was invaluable to late Twentieth Century theater history.  A successor will be hard to find.

                                          For the shows she worked on, she was their unsung heroine.

                                         Broadway had better dim its lights, for her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!