OSU theater professor's work full of nasty encounters

Friday, June 29, 2007

 

Lloyd Caldwell’s career is a highly physical affair.

Caldwell, a theater professor at Oklahoma State University, teaches stage combat. In July, he will take his expertise to Wales to oversee an intensive one-week course that will emphasize safe and technical training for professional and amateur actors.

About 60 student actors are enrolled in the class that starts July 14. Most are from the United Kingdom, and three are OSU students. Their instruction will occur at St. Donat’s Castle, a medieval castle in South Wales overlooking the Severn Estuary.

Martial arts or fencing experience is not a prerequisite.

“We teach student actors to fight,” Caldwell said. “We do not teach fighters to act.”

Caldwell, a seasoned actor in film and on stage, will be joined by other instructors from the British Academy of Dramatic Combat. Established in 1968, the combat teaching organization is one of the oldest in the world.

“I’m thrilled that my students here at OSU get to meet some of the top flight directors in the United Kingdom,” Caldwell said. “Their staff and directors are unbelievably good.”

Although the profession is full of nasty encounters like jabbing, strangling, pushing and shoving, Caldwell calls his colleagues congenial and says teaching stage combat requires generosity in a highly competitive profession.

“Fight directors are very gentle people,” said Caldwell, one of about 500 fight directors worldwide. “They tend to be very romantic people who make their living by the sword.

“The profession attracts people with a chivalric bent.”

John Robert Fisher of Tulsa, Brendan Stallings of Oklahoma City and Sean Wegener of McKinney, Texas, are participating OSU students.