We're now less than a month from SHOWTIME! Last Tuesday we were back for the first rehearsal after Easter break, and we had a special guest, a friend I've known for some time but never before in his capacity as "Battle Coordinator/Combat Instructor/Weapons Expert" (he said, "My title gets better everytime I'm introduced!"). All of Tuesday's rehearsal was devoted to teaching the kids how to LOOK like they were fighting WITHOUT hurting each other. My own path to the stage was along the lines of learning skits and stand-up routines from records, and I'm still far more comfortable with any kind of acting more focused on vocal ability than on anything physical. The majority of my directing has been small skits involving 3-5 people standing or sitting on folding chairs (and more recently, doing puppet plays). So, I'm not the best at "choreographing" ANYTHING, much less battle sequences, and I was VERY grateful to have this friend on hand to teach this aspect of acting to the kids.
The unfortunate thing is, though most of the principle actors were on hand, none of the "extras" I've been promised from the tech crew showed up. We are doing a rather involved sequence to portray "The Battle of Five Armies" near the end of "The Hobbit," but because our cast has been so small, we need to create our army of Goblins that attack from the tech crew and anyone else available, as nearly the entire cast is needed to defend the gates of Erebor. This became obvious when our Battle Instructor said, "Okay, now everyone get with a person you will actually be fighting in the play." Most of the attackers were not present. And though, ultimately, Bilbo's friends WIN the battle, the point at which lights go down on the battle, they are losing rather badly. So, what we're going to have to do is make it appear that the army that has been through the most training in stage combat, will lose to an army that at this point has had no training at all...
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