POTTSVILLE — Actors employ many talents to bring scenes to life onstage. They include the ability to handle prop weapons like swords.
Recently, actress Emily R. Ehlinger, Pottsville, has been helping the actors who make up Schuylkill Free Shakespeare to develop such skills.
“We start with footwork. Different types of weapons have different stances and attack styles. For example, the footwork that goes with rapier-style fights are slightly more delicate advances, retreats, pass-throughs and lunges, whereas the broadswords we use in Macbeth are more battering weapons that require a wider stance and bigger passing steps,” Ehlinger said Thursday.
Schuylkill Free Shakespeare will perform “Much Ado About Nothing” at the Schuylkill County Council for the Arts, 1440 Mahantongo St., Pottsville, at 8 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, and at 4 p.m. Sunday. The troupe will also perform “The Tragedy of Macbeth” at 8 p.m. Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
Ehlinger and company have been practicing at the mansion.
There are 32 people involved in the production. They include Mitch Hornberger, Ringtown, who will play Macbeth; Nick Twardzik, Shenandoah, who will play Macduff; and Chris Swantek, Shenandoah, who will play Banquo.
Working with swords, even prop swords, requires actors to take certain precautions.
“We discuss the proper distance to keep each other safe. Swords are put in hand and we run distance drills to make sure our actors are not too far apart or too close together. At this point the swords are not connecting with each other,” Ehlinger said.
“After we discuss footwork and distance, then we discuss targets and parries, and cuts versus thrusts,” she said.
Ehlinger is a 2001 graduate of Minersville Area High School. In 2005, she earned a bachelor’s degree in theater arts from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
From 2008 to 2009, she was part of a theater group based in New York called Bare Shakespeare. From 2009 to 2012, Ehlinger worked as an education artist and an actress at Shakespeare & Co., 70 Kemble St., Lenox, Massachusetts.
In recent years, Ehlinger has been involved with numerous theater groups in Schuylkill County. Schuylkill Free Shakespeare held its first production, “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,” at the mansion in August 2016.
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