Lindsay Anne Herring is currently a Critical Insight fellow at Pittsburgh Public Theater in partnership with American Theatre magazine.

By LINDSAY ANNE HERRING

During the crazed rush of performance previews and tech week for The Hobbit, now running at Pittsburgh Public Theater, I had the pleasure of sitting down with José Pérez IV, the company’s resident fight and intimacy director who also is a performer in the production. 

As an actor and fight director, Pérez explores mental and physical safety within the rehearsal process and performance. For close to 15 years, he has been creating new, exciting works of theater featuring stage combat, which he calls “fight theater,” or shows that have fighting at the forefront of the performance, much like song and dance is for musicals.

Outside of The Public, he has many projects on which he wears many hats, including as the artistic director of Big Storm Performance Company in Pittsburgh, where he specializes in unconventional forms, including site-specific, interactive fight theater and dance-focused theater.

During our chat, Pérez discussed his extensive experience in stage combat and physical storytelling, and he reflected on the evolving industry standards for fight and intimacy directors. He stressed the necessity of these roles for fostering collaboration, always with an emphasis on safety, and consistently raising industry standards with each project he takes on.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

LINDSAY ANNE HERRING: Since you’re both acting in and fight-directing The Hobbit, can you tell me what that experience looks like in the rehearsal space?

JOSÉ PÉREZ IV: A lot of times I wish I had four of me. I noticed where this work really trickles into is “homework time” as a fight director, especially early on in the process. When I’m teaching choreography, those first couple of weeks are really homework intensive for me as the fight director. For a show like this that is really choreography heavy, I will come in with scenes already prepped, right? So the month, even two months leading up to production, I’ll be working diligently and making the first draft of choreography. Because then once you get into rehearsal, it all changes. 

That’s just the nature of the work. Just so much happens in the first pass at choreography. So after rehearsal, at night, I’ll be like, “Okay, we have this new thing. I didn’t know this person was left-handed. This person has an injury here. This isn’t working for the character …” And then I go back to the drawing board and make edits to be ready for the next day. So I already usually have a lot of homework, but then also being an actor in this production is an added layer. So navigating that was really time intensive for this show. 

HERRING: Do you find it difficult to balance being in a show and directing people in that way, or do you find that it came naturally with this show?

PÉREZ: The dynamics are something that you have to navigate, especially something like this that is a very ensemble-based show. And in that way, we all really see each other as equals. Because I’ve done it for so long, I feel like I figured out the right balance. I sort of do an energy shift and put on the directing team hat. I make sure that what I’m speaking to actors about is very clearly in my lane. People seem really receptive to it. And then when I shift into an actor, it’s nice because I let go of a lot of stuff, and I just tend to be a lot goofier.

HERRING: So many theater people and artists in life wear many different hats. What would you say your hat as the fight director at The Public looks like?

PÉREZ: I love this position of resident fight and intimacy director. The Public brought me on for a contract for the whole year, so even if I’m not working on every single show, it allows it to be a very organic relationship where I’m almost like the “on-call” person. So if I’m not on a show, I’m there if they have any questions or anything I can help them out with. 

Let’s say a show has opened, so the designers are out of town, but they need help on an adjustment. With their permission, I can come in to be their proxy. It’s happened a few times where there’s been shows that, on paper, did not seem that it would need any sort of fight directing. But through discoveries of rehearsals, it’s found that there isn’t a fight per se, but a very physical moment. That’s where I come into rehearsal and take a look at it. And I really love that, because other spaces would have someone on contract most of the time to come in to do that work. Having such an organic relationship, where I’m the term resident—this place really feels like a home for me. An artistic home. It’s easy for people just to text me and be like, “Hey, this thing came up. Can you come in sometime in the next few days?” And then we just figure it out. That’s really nice. 

The Public supports me in a lot of other ways. Rehearsal space is a big deal for when I’m working on choreography for productions here, but then when I’m working on choreography for other shows, and a lot of times my own projects as well, rehearsal space is gold. So that’s been a really generous aspect of them supporting me as just an artist in the city as well.

HERRING: How would you say your work in fight direction and intimacy goes together for you?

PÉREZ: They’re very, very similar. In the early days, when intimacy direction was really starting to get its legs as a formal practice, a lot of the originators were people who were in the stage combat community and then wanted to have a focus on intimacy. I think their similarities have to do with the facilitation process of something that is physical storytelling. But then you also really need to be conscious about safety, both physical and psychological, and people’s boundaries in a lot of different ways. A lot of times in fights, it has to do with things like injuries or movements that actors may not be comfortable with, but it’s also with boundaries around touch. We’re at a really great place where now a lot of stage combat people have intimacy training as well, and we’re starting to see the practices meld into each other, where instead of just saying, “Okay, you’re going to grapple here and then push them here,” a lot of times there’s a boundary check first. “Does that even work for you? Okay, it doesn’t?” We look at how we can still tell the same story with different choreography. 

HERRING: It’s clear the work you do in fight director and intimacy is really important, but so many regional theaters are struggling financially. How do you make the case for this role at regional theaters?

PÉREZ: I don’t think you can get rid of any of the roles that are about critical safety. If there’s going to be fights in a show, you need a fight person. One can get around them creatively if they want it. Like maybe they make a moment really abstract where there’s no physical contact at all. This could be anything, like splashing paint against a wall with sound cues to represent that violence happened. People could get around it, if they’re trying to hack their budget and not include personnel, which would be really unfortunate for people like me who make their living off of it. What I see is that the trend really is in both fields is that the industry seems to be becoming more and more mindful, realizing that when it comes to safety, there are some roles that are non-negotiable.

If there’s serious intimacy, you need an intimacy director. If there’s serious violence, or even any sort of violence or stunts, you need that fight director. That seems like the industry standard. 

Now, I alluded that many theaters are in really tough positions where they are thinking about their budgets, because they need to keep those doors open. They want to produce the best, most excellent work that they can, but they also have to balance it with continuing. And we need the theaters to stay open. So I understand. There are difficult choices to be made. We want them all to be made as mindfully as possible.

So where I see the future of it all going is that it just seems like these roles are becoming more and more prevalent. We will not go back to how things worked before in terms of people being mistreated or their boundaries not being respected. So if you’re going to do that work [in terms of fight and intimacy], people who do the work that I do, we also have to be in that space. 

HERRING: I’m also interested in the work you do outside of The Public, including Big Storm. What are those other projects like right now? 

PÉREZ: Those fight plays—the most recent one that I wrote, called To Battle —the development was supported by The Public. They had us for so much rehearsal time, and then we did a one-night showing of the play. That was the first time in front of an audience, and since then, it’s been in a lot of development. This script had its world premiere in Louisville, Kentucky, with a company down there, and right now it’s being rehearsed at a college in Maryland. They’re going to put it up in November. So it’s nice to see this script being shared. For Big Storm this summer, we did another one of my plays called Very Berry Dead. Both of these plays are probably my favorite plays that I’ve ever written, and that was wonderful to be able to do it here in Pittsburgh.

HERRING: What do you pull inspiration from for the stories you share?

PÉREZ: Themes that are really important to me are found family and mental health. Those tend to be a lot of the cores of my script. I’m drawn to a lot of comedy. I tend to write a lot of comedic dialogue, and then at the center is more of a more serious subject matter. I sort of like that give and take when I write.

Categories: Company, Feature Stories

Tags: Fight director, Intimacy director, Jose Perez IV, O'Reilly Theater, Pittsburgh Public Theater, The Hobbit