Reviving this thread because I will be starting rehearsals soon for a show with A WHOLE LOT of stage combat- some with swords, some with other weapons, some hand-to-hand, and not all of the actors will be playing humans, which adds a whole nother level of difficulty...
I've never worked on a show with fights that involved more than 3 characters, or where the fights were more than a few "moves" long. I'm incredibly lucky because we're doing 4 days of "fight camp" (open to the public for a tuition fee, the cast of the show will be attending for free) with the choreographer to give the actors a crash course in non-traditional stage combat. I'll be attending the fight camp as well, to work on notation and what to look for in terms of safety and maintenance.
My question for the SM hive mind is: anybody have tips on blocking notation in a melee situation? Like, 6 or 8 actors all fighting each other at the same time?
In college I was taught to notate a 2-character fight in a sort of 2-column chart, with one column standing for each actor, but that sort of goes out the window when you've got 2 actors jointly playing 2 heads of a dragon, fighting 3 other characters who are also simultaneously fighting somebody else.
Thanks!