Jamey Feshold taught kids how to fight in First Stage's Percy Jackson musical (2024)

There is still time for Greek mythology lovers and music theater fans to catch First Stage's "The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical" at the Marcus Center's Todd Wehr Theatre before it closes March 10.

Based on the popular book series by Rick Riordan, "The Lightning Thief" follows Percy Jackson on his quest to recover Zeus' stolen lightning bolt to prevent a war between the Greek gods. First Stage opened the show several days after the series finale of the Disney+ streaming service's "Percy Jackson and The Olympians" series, an eight-episode retelling of Riordan's first Percy Jackson book that garnered over 26 million views in its first three weeks on Disney+ and Hulu, according to Deadline.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel caught up with actor Jamey Feshold, the musical's fight director, to chat about how the production differs from the popular book series, film franchise and newly released Disney+ television show. Feshold's responses have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Question: You take on a handful of different roles in this show as Mr. D, Ares, Gabe and the Minotaur. Can you share what your process has been like in preparing for this show?:

Feshold: I was lucky enough to get the fight director opportunity in the casting mid to late last year, so I've known about it for a while. A lot of it was just kind of reacquainting myself with some of the source material, a lot of discussions about the kinds of weapons that we wanted in it, preparing some basic choreography ideas and fight motifs that I wanted to use throughout the show.

Working with the kids has been amazing. They're super talented, and just kind of working on teaching, you know, I thankfully have a lot of experience working with kids and teaching them movement and choreography and stuff. And so just getting to do a lot of that creating choreography around their bodies and like, what they're comfortable and capable of doing has been very cool. And a lot of it it's it's such a wild process, because you come in with like this picture of what the fight is going to look like in your head. And then you start seeing people move, and then it's like, okay, this isn't gonna work, this isn't gonna work, this will work. Okay, let's start, like figuring out manipulating all these different ideas and putting it together. And yeah, that's kind of been that's kind of in the biggest part of it just collaborating as actively as possible with everyone in the room so that we can kind of find something that works for everyone.

Question: You mentioned referencing other materials in preparing for this role and trying to figure out what you wanted fight scenes look like and how you wanted to present these characters to an audience. There's a lot of cultural fanfare around Percy Jackson right now since the TV show is out and people are revisiting the book and musical. Did you read the books?

Feshold: Absolutely, yeah, I mean, I growing up, I read all the books as they were coming out. I'm a huge Greek mythology fan. I always have been. Pretty much like every form of media that has like myth-based characters, I will participate in and really learn a lot.

I made sure to watch the recording of the original musical when it was in its off-Broadway run, which was great. I watched some of the new show as well, to kind of see how they're engaging with the new material. I dived into the the first book, again, just some of the major scenes that I knew that I'd be choreographing, because I wanted to make sure that I had a good understanding of how the novel handled everything alongside the musical. As much as possible, just trying to layer in as much of all these different things.

[Between questions Feshold said that he pulled very little from the 2010 Percy Jackson film adaptations due to their departure from the original plotlines of the books and the aging up of the main trio.]

Question: Are there any scenes that you think people should look forward to or that you're most excited for people to see brought to stage?

Feshold: I think the battle sequence at the camp, Capture the Flag, I think is probably one of the most exhilarating moments of the show. It definitely hits that kind of action point that you really want.

One of the greatest emotional beats in the show. (The character) Annabeth has a song, "My Grand Plan," where she really just gets to take control of the stage take control of her story share a lot of heart and both Sanaiah [Hibbler] and Calleigh [Mills] are just so powerful in that moment when they're kind of taking control of their power. That's something that's so important in the Percy Jackson story. It's the next generation seizing their moment, and they do such a beautiful job with it.

Question: Is there any wisdom that you enjoyed getting to impart on the young actors, whether it be knowledge about taking part in a production of this scale or career advice? Or is there anything that they taught you as a younger generation?

Feshold: I mean, I think one of the best things about working in TYA (Theater for Young Audiences) shows is the fact that there's so much of an opportunity to share experience. The kids will often ask questions that I would never have thought about necessarily at their age, but they're just so knowledgeable. That's something that's very cool about the First Stage program is just that these kids really know a lot of the ins and outs about trying to be a professional. That's so hard to find elsewhere, and it's is so hard to get until you are actually working in the field. But, these kids they're just so excited. They're so passionate like they're making their dreams come true every single time and and it's just very inspiring.

More: First Stage's 'The Lightning Thief' puts sword-slinging hero Percy Jackson on stage