(dramatic music) (sword swooshing) - I'm Michael Liebhauser.

I'm primarily a stage performer, and then I also teach stage combat and do choreography.

And here I'm specifically the choreographer for "Treasure Island" at Bishop Hendricken.

Retreat.

(footsteps clattering) Double retreat.

A stage combat choreographer is the person who creates the simulated violence that happens on stage in a play and ideally does so in a way (swords clanking) that is safe and repeatable and tells whatever story it is that the play needs the violence to tell.

And you're stepping up onto the platform high to low.

If I was gonna teach like the most basic cut with a weapon like this, it's gonna be what we'd call the fishing line cut.

It'd be the start of most bits of choreography.

You would have a student find an en garde, which you would do by, get your feet just a little wider than hip-width apart and take a step back with your right foot so that you've got a nice three-dimensional stance.

Then bend your knees so that they're comfortable.

Take your hips like I've got spotlights pointed at the person you're fighting.

Your shoulders are in line with your hips.

And now get your hands out in front of you and nice and alive.

And that's an en garde.

(blades clanking) (sword swooshing) I was initially drawn to stage combat because it's cool.

When I was in college, the storytelling element of it became something that was really fascinating to me.

(sword clanking) Just got out of the way.

And that momentum comes right to the hip 'cause you're gonna now run her straight through.

(swords clanking) Good.

So these are a couple of the swords that we're using for "Treasure Island."

They're stage-safe replicas of cutlasses.

With a weapon like this, especially for this show, we're aiming for something quite swashbuckling.

So the exact historical accuracy of how the weapon would've been used and what is exactly martially dangerous and correct, that goes by the wayside.

The most common combat you get asked to do is either what dueling arts broadly calls contemporary violence.

It's like sort of a hyper-realistic approach to contemporary fighting.

- Okay.

(bottle clanking and clattering) This show doesn't live there.

This lives in the golden age of sail, so everyone's got a big old cutlass and in some cases a very pirate-y gun.

That you're working like this, just big swing up and down.

- I have a rifle that I use, and after I fire at one of the pirates, I like kind of wield it as a club, and like, I swing down on people.

(chuckles) - You just have to try to teach exactly the techniques you're going to use for the fight.

Comes in there.

- [Kiernan] Jacob, just learning our moves, just using our swords, just making sure we have the right footing, good stance.

(blades clanking) - You're gonna get shot right away.

- Oh goodness.

So I'm a beggar that's like in the very beginning of the first act.

- I'm Blind Pew and Calico Jack.

I'm using like the firearms, so like the movements of like the shot and like the timing too and how, like, you have to, like, move back.

- Well, he's very good at explaining things, and he's a great demonstrator.

And I learned a lot of like musket reloading stuff from him 'cause that's pretty much all I do 'cause I die.

(gunshot booms) - Dead.

Nice.

(performers exclaiming) - There's a lot of like intense like scenes between either just like one or two people and then like a big group scenes where we're using like swords and guns and all that.

- Dink, dink, chase, and then those two can exit that way.

Those two are exiting that way.

Don't know what we do with Long John Silver yet, but something, something really good and cool.

(dramatic ominous music) - All right, folks, so we're gonna do a fight call for the full show, so sequential order from the first prologue scene.

(performer yelling) - [Performer] Got him.

Buddy, hold him down.

- [Performer] Stop your score.

- He saw the set, and he saw the scene.

He's like, "I think it would be really cool if they fight up the stairs."

And I'm like, "Okay, you're the professional, so I'm gonna trust you."

And it was always the one that was a little nerve-racking because it's a big set.

- A lot of the steps are different heights, and we have one performer who's got to fight walking backwards up that the whole time.

So that is definitely, definitely biggest challenge we have.

If I have a nemesis in this production, it is this stair unit.

It has given me more trouble than anything else.

The swords are great, kids are great, but this guy, this guy's really, he's got it out for me.

Keep it quiet.

Okay.

Flynn.

- Yeah?

- Even further, even further over.

Minute to minute, my task, did you learn something?

Did you get a sense of what this is like as a thing to learn and to do in the world?

(performer yelling) And do I feel good about walking away from this and leaving a sword in the hand of a teenager who's gonna swing it at another teenager?

(swords clanking) - Jim, where are you going?

Hold right back by Jonas.

- He'll have you run through it slow.

For example, the other day I was working with my stage partner Jacob once again.

And when I went to go stab him, he was telling me that's almost at performance speed.

- You have to be thinking about what is safe, what is repeatable, what's clear to an audience.

- [Kiernan] You have to slow it down but make sure that it's more fluid and more smooth when you're doing it so that you're actually perfecting your movements.

And then eventually you can bring it to performance speed.

- [Performer] He's got the map!

(performer grunts) - There's been so much improvement in what they're doing.

It's really cool.

It's really great.

I find it's obviously a big reward of doing the thing.

One second, it's gonna be the big fight.

I'm gonna sneak and just take a quick peek at something.

(dramatic music) (footsteps clattering) Now that was way better.

That was way better this time.

(tense music) - Yeah.

- And then action.

- Okay.

Oh, look up like that.

- Hi, my name's Jacob Madriaga.

I play George Merry in Bishop Hendricken's... What's this play called again?

"Treasure Island," "Treasure Island."

Sorry, a lot has happened.

A lot has happened.

If I'm gonna be completely honest with you, there is a lot of emotions going through me.

Regardless of how many times I tell myself I can't do it, doubt myself that I'm gonna mess up, I tell myself, "No, this is what Miss P has been talking about."

Miss P was always, "Why not you?"

"Why not me?"

And always focuses on a positive mindset.

(audience chattering) (ominous music) (hurried dramatic music) (performers yelling) - Michael couldn't be here tonight for our opening.

That's kind of how it works with fight choreographers, especially in educational theater.

He came and set this for us, and then we had to go off and fly on our own tonight.

(performer yelling) - Now!

- Michael has been walking us through, been very patient, especially through how emotional and such a physical and mental toll it takes on me and Lucas on our bodies.

(performers yelling) It's very amazing to finally see this come into fruition.

- Bam, so we can see it was like fingertips across cheeks.

(dramatic adventurous music) (sword clanking) (sword clanking) (sword clanking) - And his back.

(object thudding) Ooh.

And forward you go.

(performer yelling) (swords clanking) - Come on!

(yelling) - [Jacob] Michael really brought out the best of me with that performance.

(performer yelling) - He opened up a way for me to express myself.

(triumphant music) (audience applauding) - Oh, 100%.

Hello, Miss P. - Hey Jacob.

- I'm here.

- [Interviewer] So how do you feel like it went?

- I think it went very well, very well.

The sword fight went amazing.

- I got a little anxious for a minute when you started that you guys were like really high energy in that that something, a sword might go flying.

- Maybe I was a little bit too aggressive at first, but we toned it down.

- [Interviewer] Anything you'd say to Michael, who taught you some of your moves?

- Thank you, Michael.

I wish you the best of luck.

You made a star.

See ya.

- (laughs) You can't make this stuff up.

(upbeat surfer music) (static crackling)