Stage Combat Workshop Faculty

Learn from the best

Robert Westley
Robert has performed, directed, choreographed movement and staged violence for theatres, opera houses and film companies across the country and for the past thirteen years has worked professionally as an actor and physical performer for stage and screen.  Recent fight directing credits include the premieres of “The Bigger Man” at Los Angeles’ Circle X theatre, “Gabriel’s Daughter” for Central City Opera and New York City premieres of “The Screams of Kitty Genovese,” “The Salacious Uncle Baldrick” and “Waiter, Waiter.” Other recent theatre productions include the Keen Company’s “Tea and Sympathy” and the Jewish Emu Theatre Company’s “The Indian Wants the Bronx” in New York City, Boston’s New Repertory Theatre’s “A Skull of Connemara,” and The Huntington Theatre Studio’s productions of “Hot House,” and “Polaroid Stories.” Additionally, Robert’s work has been seen at such venues as Chautauqua Opera, The Lost Colony, The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the New York Fringe Festival. He has worked on theatrical productions of Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, West Side Story, The Fantasticks, Private Lives, Moon Over Buffalo, Noises Off, Othello and Company, and the operas Tosca, I Pagliacci, Les Contes D’Hoffmann and Carmen. Recent film credits include “The Key Man” starring Hugo Weaving and Brian Cox and “Fall Down Dead” with David Carradine and Dominique Swain.

Robert has taught and coached acting, theatrical movement and stage combat both nationally and internationally and has instructed at Boston University’s Theatre Conservatory and Opera Institute, the North Carolina School of the Arts, National Theatre Conservatory, Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, the Asolo Conservatory, the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Alabama, Temple University and numerous workshops and intensives in America and Great Britain. Robert is a holds a Master of Fine Arts from Boston University’s School of Theatre Arts Professional Theatre Training Program and a Master of Arts in Theatre Studies from Northern Illinois University. Currently, Robert works as Managing Director of GoodFoot Movement Productions which he co-founded and is presently the Head of Movement at Hofstra University.

D.C. Wright

Certified Teacher, D.C. Wright has been directing fights and teaching stage combat to others for over twelve years. Recent professional credits include the Off-Broadway production of The Blowin of Baile Gall at the Donaghy Theatre in the Irish Arts Center, Of Mice and Men and Romeo and Juliet at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, and Macbeth, Henry VIII, and Twelfth Night at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. He has also been busy at in academic circles as well directing fights for Communicating Doors, The Monument, Henry IV pt.1, andZastrozzi at Western Illinois University, as well as Romeo and Juliet for the University of Kansas. D.C. also helped direct and performed in two wild west stunt shows for an amusement park in Taiwan.

D.C. has taught combat classes at institutions around the country including Brigham Young University, University of Utah, Boston University, Emerson College, Ball State University, Western Illinois University, Colorado College, and Dixie College, as well as at several local, regional, and national workshops including the SAFD’s NSCW, Winter Wonderland, Rumble in the Rockies, Boston Tea Party, Las Vegas Winter Workshop, and the Eureka College Combat Workshop. D.C. holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Boston University’s School of Theater Arts Professional Theatre Training Program, and a BA in Theatre from Brigham Young University. D.C. is an Associate Professor at Western Illinois University where he is the Head of Movement/Stage Combat.

D.C. has a beautiful wife, Heather, two of the cutest girls you have ever seen, and a brand new baby boy, born with a sword in his hand.

Ms. Holly Rocke, Coordinator

Holly Rocke, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts and Drama, teaches the acting here at Eureka College.  She recently became a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique.  A member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association, she is interested in teaching actors to combine their body movements and speaking voice to create interesting characters.  She is currently a member of the Society of American Fight Directors and for the past three years has served as the coordinator of Central Illinois Stage Combat Workshop to be hosted on the Eureka camps.  She served as co-host and workshop coordinator of the region III Kenedy Center American College Theatre Festival for multiple years.  She has worked with theatres in London, New York, and Los Angeles and has earned the following:  a B.S. in Theatre and Mathematics, Eureka College; an M.F.A., in Acting Illinois, State University. Instructor of Theatre Arts and Drama.

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