The Ithaca Shakespeare company has been performing outdoor summer theater for 20 years, and I’ve been fortunate to be a part of it for many of them. First, through friends (and students) of mine who choreographed their fights beginning around 2006, and more recently, choreographing, training their actors, and occasionally performing since 2016. Community theater…
Choreographing fights for the Ithaca Shakespeare Company over the past few years has been one of the highlights of coming back to Ithaca for me, and I was honored and delighted to join the Board this year. This summer, we’re inviting our audience to weigh in on what we perform. Vote for what you’d like…
My grandfather passed away last week, at the age of 92. He had a strong Jewish education (Yeshiva Flatbush), led our family’s Passover seders when we visited, and appreciated the pulls of identity. He married an Irish Catholic before she converted to Judaism, and celebrated both the Irish and Jewish sides of his children’s heritage.…
I was recently asked to help out with a student-directed production of “The Nether” at Cornell. There aren’t any full-on “fights,” but the director recognized that they would benefit from assistance with a lift and some brief moments of physical aggression between the characters. The show is challenging, touching on themes of abuse and manipulation…
I’m teaching two stage combat workshops in December: 1. Disarms: Disarms are a great way to end a fight without death or injury, but introduce their own risks due to changes in distance and potentially flying weapons. We’ll cover techniques for disarming swords, knives, and blunt objects ranging from the flashy (but unrealistic) to martially…
I’m teaching two stage combat workshops this month: 1. Moving like a Master: Brief intro/review of the basic attacks and parries with a sword, learn a simple sequence, then work on how to add physicality and nuances that convey different levels of skill/background. No experience necessary, some prior exposure to stage combat and familiarity with…
To promote this summer’s Ithaca Shakespeare shows, I wrote the following piece trying to share some context on the weapons we use on stage. One of the innovations of Renaissance drama was the recognition that scenes of physical conflict can convey a character’s virtues, foibles, or identity more vividly than words alone. In ancient…
The tournament in this summer’s production of Pericles may be the most complicated choreography we’ve done in our years of choreographing fights for Ithaca Shakespeare Company. While the text doesn’t even require the tournament to take place on stage, Director Steve Ponton always loves to give the audience a good fight, and we’re happy to…
I still plan to do most of my thinking/writing on this site, but I wrote the linked piece below for broader share-ability as a reaction to the allegations of what went on on the set of Kill Bill. I first heard about the choking scene in Inglourious Basterds from a director on a student film…
Jacob K. Lehman 