By Maddie Buttitta
Safety is one of the most important things that actors strive to maintain – the freedom to go all out and still feel your scene partner’s support – be it for the battle of wits between Richard III and Lady Anne, recreating Hector’s murder in Troilus and Cressida, or Comedy of Errors’s slapstick shenanigans. Combat in theatre is a rehearsal in of itself, which is why dedicated rehearsal days for fights with combat instructors are necessary. Without professional, safety-conscious fight choreographers, fights would not reach the same tension – the tension of seeing a fight that looks so real and yet is not – nor the same amount of safety.
Via email, I talked with J.P. Scheidler, S & P’s resident fight choreographer, about his background in stage combat, as well as how combat differently aligns within genre.
Q: How did you get started in the field of stage combat?
JP: I started with a class at the National Stage Combat Workshop hosted by the Society of American Fight Directors in the summer of 1991. I had observed a production of Macbeth in rehearsal during my undergraduate time at Western Michigan University and really took interest in the fight work. I also spoke with a two fellow students who had taken the same workshop in 1990 and thought it would be a good three weeks of summer training. It was fantastic and I returned to train with the SAFD at numerous workshops. During my graduate studies I earned my teacher certification from the SAFD in 1998.
Q: How has your job as fight choreographer evolved since becoming a part of Mary Baldwin’s Shakespeare & Performance program?
JP: Within the S&P program I teach stage combat and also the Body in Performance class (movement) so anytime I choreograph students I work to reinforce lessons from those classes. My hope is that working with me in production is a chance for students to apply skills and ideas again so they experience the lessons in action. In terms of evolution of my own work I would say that I have refined my understanding of the basic principles that create dynamic stage action and pictures. This becomes very helpful when working in very compressed time requirements where I may not have time to help students polish the work but must get a dynamic structure working in their bodies quickly.
Q: What is your role in choreographing an MFA show versus a First-Year show (last semester’s Macbeth and the upcoming Romeo & Juliet)?
JP: My role is basically the same in either: work with the director to tell a dynamic story and make sure the actor’s stay safe. Actor skill level, directorial ideas, budget, costumes, performance space…all of these influence what we can accomplish but the goal is mostly the same in all productions. My job is to fulfill the director’s vision of the story and world of the play. With student directors, I will often urge them to define these stylistic choices further based on my need to understand and their need to meet all the duties of being a director, that’s part of the educational process. In strictly professional productions, I will ask questions for my understanding and offer ideas when I believe the director welcomes them.
Q: Were there any challenges that went into designing a fight scene for a Shakespeare play, especially such a funny one like Comedy?
JP: Having just come off another production of “Comedy,” I felt very familiar with the story and scripts’ demands, which was a big help! This production offered challenges mostly based around the multiple casting of actors and time constraints. Making the story clear to the audience when two actors are playing three characters requires a good deal of trial and error, just to make sure the staging works. That kind of staging is very demanding of the actor’s precision.
Q: What goes into planning fight scenes? Do you take into account someone’s combat experience at the time of planning the scenes? Do you wait until the day of the choreography work to consider their experience?
JP: Actor’s skill makes a huge difference; it is very hard to make plans around how two or more actor’s each work and how they work together. Personalities can really help or hinder any stage work. That being said, I do often have ideas about specific moments that I want to try with the actors, see what works, and what they make of it all.
Q: What’s the difference between planning choreography for big fight scenes vs. one-on-one combat?
JP: Traffic patterns and available space take on greater importance in the big fight scenes. Large group fights can be tricky to keep enough action going on while maintaining a clear story. Often I plan out basic traffic patterns of who moves where and roughly when. Then, in rehearsal, I choreograph specific phrases for the various groups and watch what works for the big picture. Timing actions from one partnership to fit with another are difficult but it looks really great to have a visual path, where the audience follows a specific character who fights their way through the battle or where we see the specific cause and effect of particular moments and so understand the overall battle. With a one on one fight the demands need be focused more on the specific characters; how they fight, why they fight, what they stand to lose, and exciting story moments. Both are really the same job but the demands change due to the scale of each.
