Oh, I hurt.

David Leong, a "Fight Master" with the Society of American Fight Directors, is the fight choreographer for SHENANDOAH. I first met David in1992, and he and I became much more familiar with each other later when Jenny and I lived in Richmond from 1999-2002 (David is head of the Theatre Dept. at Virginia Commonwealth U., where Jenny got her master's degree).

In today's SHENANDOAH rehearsal, we worked fights. All day. There's a big brawl in the middle of Act 1, involving about a dozen people, which we made some adjustments to and brought up to full speed, which took 2 hours. The prologue is a big number involving about 15 guys, and the second half of it, involving 9 of us, is a series of vignettes primarily involving stylistic, slow motion fights, Civil War style. This is in many ways more difficult than the regular stuff. We are fighting in slow-mo; and we're acting, so we're adding tension, dispair, anger; and we're making adjustments and rehearsing them and making more adjustments and rehearsing them. Oh, by the way, we're singing at the same time. We worked this number for 4 hours.

It is difficult to describe what this is like, but if you want a loose comparison, try this:
1) Stand up.
2) Bend your legs, so that your height drops by about 12 inches.
3) Hold out your arms so that they're parallel to the ground (we're using rifles during our fights).
4) Now, while in that position, sing "Amazing Grace."
5) Relax for a minute.
6) While jogging in place, sing the national anthem.
7) Relax a minute.
8) Repeat steps 1 - 7 for the next 4 hours.

If you try this, you may get a loose idea of how I feel right now. But I think you got off light.