Taking photos of productions - legal issues

Interesting question. I've never wondered about photography during shows as being 'illegal' or not. Video is a different matter. Of course I too hadn't thought of the costume designs, lighting designs and set designs as being copyrighted (although I did realise that the people had rights etc just didn't think about it in context of photography.) The other thing that interested me in this is that the venue can hold rights over video work...how does this work? because it's filmed in their venue with bits of the venue popping into shots etc? The most annoying part of photography in the theatre is the sound and the flashing. So unless you're a pro...I say no! Oh wow that was kind of cool. When we had a photographer take photos of our school production it was very eerie. The audience was virtually empty and then there was this man jumping around followed by the click click click of the camera. Not used to having this noise in the theatre I found it quite distracting. I saw the photos after though...they were worth ALL the distraction. ____________________________________________________________ Currently working on: A nice break before jumping into my next project.