OSU theater professor's work full of nasty encounters
Friday, June 29, 2007
Stage combat is one of the courses that Caldwell, a theater professor, teaches at
Oklahoma State University. In July, he takes 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. Three are OSU students. Their instruction will take place 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.”
And though 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 profession that is highly competitive.
“Fight directors are very gentle people,” said Caldwell, who is one of about 500 fight
directors in the world. “They tend to be very romantic people who make their living
by the sword.
“The profession attracts people with a chivalric bent.”
Participating OSU students are John Robert Fisher of Tulsa, Brendan Stallings of Oklahoma
City and Sean Wegener of McKinney, Texas.
To learn more about the theater program and its performance schedule, visit http://theatre.okstate.edu .