By Matt Thekkethala ‘15, Staff Writer

Mercutio and Tybalt glared at each other, swords drawn – hatred festering within them. Romeo began to panic. Mercutio was his best friend, and Tybalt was Juliet’s cousin. “Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up!” he cried out, praying for the continued welfare of the two enemies.

Romeo and Juliet, one of the most notable Shakespearean tragedies, features a grotesque street brawl in the first scene between two rival families, the Montagues and the Capulets. The 8^th grade had the opportunity to reenact this very scene from Romeo and Juliet during a common period in a Stage Combat Workshop. The grade met in the Black Box where they were taught by Mr. Stephen Davis, a stage combat instructor at the Centenary College in Hackettstown. He had been a professional stage combat coordinator at universities such as the Drew University, as well as in many plays like Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “My goal is to teach you the art of ‘fake fighting’ without anyone getting hurt. If you follow the directions carefully, no one should get hurt,” he explained prior to the seminar. Mr. Davis’s enthusiasm and intentness on making sure we all had a good time were phenomenal. Molly Wohlforth ’15 said, “I found it hard not to pay attention!” The eighth grade students were taught how to push, shove, slap, choke, and even pull hair without inflicting pain on the partner. For every exercise, the students had to follow particular steps.

After performing each exercise, the workshop progressed to the process that the grade was waiting for: the actual brawl scene. Each pair became opponents, and would take turns performing each form of stage combat on each other. Though the fight scene that the grade reenacted was slower than the actual scene, the instructor explained that “each minute of stage acting you do here takes about six hours to perfect on Broadway.” Alicja Madloch ’15 remarked, “It was one of the BEST Co periods we’ve ever had!”