Downstage Center - B.H. Barry - May, 2010

American Theatre Wing: Progenitor of fight direction in America and 2010 Tony Honor recipient B.H. Barry talks about his decades of developing and staging fights across the country, starting with Hamlet in 1978 at Arena Stage and continuing with countless productions for the New York Shakespeare Festival, such Broadway shows as the fabled 1981 Frankenstein, City of Angels, My Favorite Year, An Inspector Calls and most recently Dividing the Estate. He discusses his upbringing and education in England, his early days as an actor and how he was drawn into fight directing, his role in establishing the Society of British Fight Directors -- and his lack of participation in its American counterpart, how he develops fights by probing the director's vision of the characters participating in the fight, why his fights are rooted more in acting then athleticism, and what it was like to be part of a tabloid saga when actors famously strayed from his direction in Broadway's I Hate Hamlet.