Bloodletting in These Hills is showing here at Parkway Playhouse August 1-10, 2025. We reached out to Jessica Johnson, who is our Intimacy Choreographer for this show, about her experience working on this production.
What part of this show is your favorite?
I don’t want to ruin the show for anyone who will be seeing it, so I’m going to skip this one!
What about this show do you think will stick with audiences?
I hope that the part of this show that sticks with audiences is the relationships between each member of the story, and how important it is to tell our stories and to learn from them.
Tell us what an intimacy choreographer does and what that process has looked like for this show.
An intimacy choreographer acts as an advocate and liaison between actors and the production team, and is a movement coach who sets any intimate moments or scenes in a production. For this show, I briefly met with the cast and production team to review some overall consent-based best practices and to share some tools to ethically, efficiently, and effectively engage with each other, in preparation for staging the intimacy scene. I attended a rehearsal to choreograph a non consensually intimate scene and worked directly with the actors involved and the director to ensure that the choreography reflected the characters’ motivations, that everyone felt safe, and that the entire choreography was documented.
What have you loved about working with Parkway Playhouse so far?
This is the first time I’ve worked with Parkway in a few years, and I think the staff is great. I also love the drive to the Playhouse and the actual theatre space.
What’s your favorite thing to do in the area?
I love hiking! But, directly in Burnsville, I’m always ready to grab a coffee/tea and a treat from App Java with my husband and daughter (she’s almost 2!) and walk around town. Stopping at the Wizard of Oz mural every time we’re in town is a must as well.
How did you get into theatre?
I started stage managing when I was a freshman in high school for my high school’s productions. We worked with professional directors, and during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, I started working as an Assistant Stage Manager for a professional Shakespeare company.
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