Photo by Darrow Montgomery
What I Do
My role as the Fight Director, on any given venture, is first and foremost to safely create truthful moments of staged violence and movement. However, my responsibility neither begins nor ends there. From the moment that I sign on to the project I make myself available as a multi-facetted resource for the production. I believe that there should be considerable overlap in a Fight Director’s skill set with those of the other members of the creative team and I am never just the “fight person.” For instance, I have designed, mixed and choreographed hundreds of blood effects - from a simple bloody nose to multiple arterial sprays; dry effects, wet effects, flowing, pooling, spurting…you get the idea. When we need a table to breakaway at just the right moment or when we absolutely need the table to NOT break…this is what I do. If we need to test a half-ton steel tank and trial-run a “drowning,” it is me in the tank working out the specifics and learning everything we can long before the actor gets near it. If we are producing Assassins I’ll be there with the research on the assassins, the relevant events and the firearms needed for the show (not to mention how to train the actors and crew in their use). I also have a solid knowledge of the basics of many technical aspects of production, which has proven to be invaluable in having fruitful dialogue with the entire team of designers. In my career, I have had to address a hundred different issues that seemed to have little to do with a “fight” but that were vital to the actors’ safety. My job is to protect those entrusted to my care; cast, crew and audience. The job never starts with “they fight” nor does it end with “she dies.”
There from start to finish!
Who I Am
Once I realized that I had an aptitude for performing and choreographing fights, I embarked on a quest for training and knowledge that continues to this day. I voraciously studied stage combat as well as specific martial disciplines, even winning numerous gold medals as a tournament competitor in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Early in my career, I founded what is now one of the premier prop weapon rental houses in the country. At the age of 40, I returned to the world of academia and earned my MFA in Theatre Pedagogy with a focus in Acting/Directing. Soon afterwards, I began to teach a variety of courses at the university level including acting, movement, theatre history and Western hoplology. In addition, I found myself choreographing for many, if not most, of the theatres in my new home, the Washington DC area. Every step of the journey has been a discovery of new ways to engage with the theatre community…ways to tell our stories…together.
Collaboration is Key!
Where I Started
Before I first picked up a sword (professionally, that is) I was an actor who toured the country, performed Shakespeare in NYC, “died” many times on the stage at Lincoln Center, sang and danced in summer stock theatres, rode horses in outdoor drama, did voice-overs for Whoopi and stunt-doubled for Michael J. Fox. I began my career “under the lights and in front of the camera,” and this has been the foundation for my collaboration with performers, both on stage and in the classroom. The transition to choreographer and teacher more than twenty years ago was straightforward, if not always easy;
Stage Combat IS Acting!