[Originally published in the Star & Wave newspaper on August 7, 2024.]
By Roy Steinberg, Producing Artistic Director
There are fist fights and swordplay and gun shots in Cape May Stage’s current production of “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B.” While our goal is to make people laugh, our mandate is to make sure none of our actors get hurt. To ensure their safety, we hired a fight director to choreograph the play’s staged fighting in this hilarious whodunit.
John Patrick Hayden, who plays the villain in the show, also happens to be an expert in making dangerous-looking actions on stage safe for the actors. The props in this play include guns, so Hayden enlisted the vice president of the Society of American Fight Directors to train the cast in the use of firearms. While it is impossible for these guns to fire anything, great care was taken and protocols were established to ensure that the guns are locked away before and after each performance, and are identified as “cold” or “hot,” the latter meaning that a blank can make a gun noise called for in the script.
In real fights, combatants try to make contact with and hurt their opponents. On stage and in film and television, however, there is no physical contact. Actors only pretend to be hurt by groaning or assuming carefully set up physical positions. Sometimes, an actor who is not involved in the action simply makes the sound of a slap or punch by clapping their hands at the moment of the supposed impact.
Fight directors work closely with the play’s director to determine the style of the fight. Since this play is a comedy, I wanted these fights to be funny, so in the midst of a sword fight, we have one character stop to play chess, or two characters exchange a high-five in celebration of beating the bad guy.
Credible make-believe fights reflect the actors’ characters. In Shakespeare’s “Henry IV Part One,” for example, Falstaff is a coward and a braggart and his fights in the play’s tavern scenes mirror those traits. In our play, Sherlock Holmes is almost robotic, so her fights play on that stiffness. Another character, a sexy mystery woman, engages in a riotously funny fight that involves a lot of provocative slapping.
The next generation of fight directors is being led by master talents like John Patrick Hayden. Come see him and a superb ensemble cast, and enjoy the staged fight scenes throughout the play, “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B,” at Cape May Stage through August 25.
For more information about our upcoming season, please visit www.capemaystage.org.
By Roy Steinberg, Producing Artistic Director
There are fist fights and swordplay and gun shots in Cape May Stage’s current production of “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B.” While our goal is to make people laugh, our mandate is to make sure none of our actors get hurt. To ensure their safety, we hired a fight director to choreograph the play’s staged fighting in this hilarious whodunit.
John Patrick Hayden, who plays the villain in the show, also happens to be an expert in making dangerous-looking actions on stage safe for the actors. The props in this play include guns, so Hayden enlisted the vice president of the Society of American Fight Directors to train the cast in the use of firearms. While it is impossible for these guns to fire anything, great care was taken and protocols were established to ensure that the guns are locked away before and after each performance, and are identified as “cold” or “hot,” the latter meaning that a blank can make a gun noise called for in the script.
In real fights, combatants try to make contact with and hurt their opponents. On stage and in film and television, however, there is no physical contact. Actors only pretend to be hurt by groaning or assuming carefully set up physical positions. Sometimes, an actor who is not involved in the action simply makes the sound of a slap or punch by clapping their hands at the moment of the supposed impact.
Fight directors work closely with the play’s director to determine the style of the fight. Since this play is a comedy, I wanted these fights to be funny, so in the midst of a sword fight, we have one character stop to play chess, or two characters exchange a high-five in celebration of beating the bad guy.
Credible make-believe fights reflect the actors’ characters. In Shakespeare’s “Henry IV Part One,” for example, Falstaff is a coward and a braggart and his fights in the play’s tavern scenes mirror those traits. In our play, Sherlock Holmes is almost robotic, so her fights play on that stiffness. Another character, a sexy mystery woman, engages in a riotously funny fight that involves a lot of provocative slapping.
The next generation of fight directors is being led by master talents like John Patrick Hayden. Come see him and a superb ensemble cast, and enjoy the staged fight scenes throughout the play, “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B,” at Cape May Stage through August 25.
For more information about our upcoming season, please visit www.capemaystage.org.
