What your fight director will need before the first rehearsal:
Give your fight director as much information as early on as possible. This of course will include your vision of how the scene should progress, but also any specifics you have on nearly every aspect of the show as it can relate to the scene in question. Here are just some of the things about which the choreographer will [or should] ask:
– the set – Do you have a complete ground plan and elevation plan, with all platforms and steps clearly marked? How much of a rake will there be? Are you expecting any “fancy” elements in the fight? Swinging from a rope, jumping up on a bench, climbing a wall? Are you including fog? Water or oil based? Are there stairs? Handrails? How are they secured?
– the lighting – Mood lighting for a fight is wonderful, but will it have enough contrast so that the actors can safely see the weapons? Where are the dead spots in the lighting plan? Where are the spots on stage where the lights might be blinding them. How low will the fixtures hang? Any footlights?
– the costumes – What will the footwear be? Rubber soles? Will there be gloves? hats? cloaks? jewelry? jackets? puffy sleeves? belts? sashes? tight fitting or loose? What about undergarments? Any item being borrowed or rented and must not be damaged?
– makeup – wigged? prosthetics? oil or water based makeup?
– the props – What weapons will be used? Are there any items not considered weapons which might be handled during the course of the fight? Is there room in the wings for weapon housing? Are there any liquids in the scene? Will blood be used? How will cleanup during the show be handled? Will there be any break-aways?
– the sound – Will the fight be underscored? If so, the fight director will need a copy of that music before the fight can be choreographed. Will any of the fighters have to wear body microphones? Will the set be mic’d? Where is the exact placement of each pick-up, especially floor mics
– the director – What kind of violence do you want to see? Some movements are comic-book, some are gruesome, some are graphic, some are emotion charged. Are you going for hyper-realism? Or do you want a “stylized” fight? What exactly does that mean to you? How much blood do you want the audience to see, if any. What do you want the characters to have learned by the end of the fight? Where do you want the audience emotionally to be at the end of the fight?
The most frustrating part of dealing with tech week is having the fighters have to deal with costume surprises. I know that most theatres don’t have the luxury of having early access to the clothing, but there are some things which the actors need by the end of the first week of fight rehearsals. The actual footwear to be used for the show must be used in rehearsal. The rehearsal clothing needs to be as close a match as is humanly possible to the costume itself so that the actor can find out if the movement needs to be modified.
As for the set, carefully go over all of the extra strengthening that will be required for balustrades, stairs, wall units, etc. Keep in mind that the fight director should not be in charge of the design nor installation of any structural safety elements. That’s the job of the technical director. Swinging from a rope might be very exciting, but choreographers don’t have any special training in it, and certainly don’t know how to do this kind of specialized rigging.
By the way, a set with many levels is not fight friendly, and even something as minor as the type of flooring planned may require certain moves to be avoided, so get the fight choreographer involved as early as possible in the design of the show.
It is unlikely that your fight choreographer is going to be available for every fight rehearsal and performance. Most of the time, a fight captain will have to be named. This is the person, usually an actor in the cast, who will run the fight rehearsals in the choreographer’s absence, and then during the run of the show will check the weapons, run the nightly pre-show fight call, and report to the choreographer any problems with the fight and request modifications to it which may be necessary. Depending on the choreographer, she might also have to notate the fight choreography, provide the stage manager with updated copies, rehearse the understudies, and train any replacements to the cast. Because of all of those duties, it should not be one of the principals. Ideally it should be someone who is both well versed in stage combat but not actually part of most of the fights, for the simple reason that it’s hard to look at the fight if you are in it. Don’t be in a rush to name the fight captain too early. Most choreographers want to get to know all of the available personnel and make that judgment themselves. He’s looking for someone who not only knows about stage combat, but can also meld well with the choreographer’s style. A mismatch here can ruin the fights.
Of course, in a major fight show the choreographer may require an assistant well before the first rehearsal. When that happens, the fight captain will not be a member of the cast at all but rather act as an assistant stage manager, and assigned purely to the fight choreographer. In that case, the fight captain will take a much more active role in pre-production meetings, serving as liaison between choreographer, stage management and the rest of the design team. She will also need to learn all of the parts of all of the fights, assist in partnering the fight segment of the audition, run all warm-ups before each fight rehearsal, assist the props crew in assigning weapons transfer protocol, advise them of any damage, run all of the pre-show fight calls, and at strike assist with the final check-in of all weapons.