Outer borough theater puts on its fight face

The Brooklyn borough is predicting a spike in violence for the month of December, and with any luck, that will draw audiences. The Brick Theater, Inc. and Art Meets Commerce have joined forces to produce Fight Fest, a collection of events spanning December, concentrating on the subject of theater fight choreography.

The Brick Theater proudly hosts this fledgling festival, which includes cabarets, stage shows, and a party. Co-artistic director Michael Gardner is one of the festival’s three curators. “We at The Brick have worked with and hosted artists from Vampire Cowboys Theater Company and Tim Haskell, both of whom are pioneering Fight Theater heavily in New York,” Gardner said. “It seemed like a natural conclusion that this theater art should get its own festival.”

Up until now, fight choreography hasn’t had much time in the spotlight. With the exception of the New York Innovative Theatre Awards, most award ceremonies choose not to recognize fight choreography with a category.

Yet, ever since Gardner, Tim Haskell, and Qui Nguyen started toying with the idea of a festival, they have been hoping to draw the art of fight choreography out of obscurity. According to Nguyen, the festival “helps bring focus to the art of stage combat, an element of theater that is often overlooked and taken for granted.”

As avid fans of stage fighting, the three curators certainly possess a degree of expertise in the subject. In fact, the original idea for Fight Fest emerged when Gardner, Haskell, and Nguyen worked together on a production titled “Kung Fu Importance of Being Earnest.”

With this festival, Haskell hopes to encourage more theatrical productions to incorporate fight choreography, and in turn draw in a more diverse audience. “I have always said there are some that would rather go and see a bad action movie than a good play, and this festival is an exception to that rule,” Haskell said.

And these exceptions come in all sorts of varieties. While Fight Fest only offers plays in its opening, who knows what will be featured in the coming years if audiences encourage the curators to continue the event.

“If the play has a great story going for it, then a great fight can help elevate it into something extraordinary,” Nguyen said. He added that “Fight Fest is our way of bringing much overdue attention to the large and growing community of actors and choreographers who passionately practice this art in New York.”