Stage Combat Workshop Faculty

Learn from the best

H. Russ Brown

H. Russ is an SAFD Certified Teacher and Advanced Actor Combatant currently serving as Dept. Chair / Head of Performance at Lon Morris College in Jacksonville, TX. His areas of expertise include Acting, Musical Theatre, Voice/Dialects, Movement & Stage Combat.

H. Russ began his career as a fight director over 20 years ago in his native Texas. He has worked professionally in the theatre as an actor, director, set designer, vocal coach, fight director and nationally award-winning playwright.     H. Russ has choreographed violence for over 60 productions and his fight work has been seen from New York to California and back again.

As a playwright, H. Russ Brown has written dozens of plays and has had many produced at both the community and professional level in theatres across the country. In 2002, he was awarded the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts New Visions/New Voices award for his musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic short story, The Selfish Giant. Most recently, he was awarded the 2005 Kennedy Center ACTF/NST Fellowship for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Playwriting.

As a performer, his favorite roles include Sweeney Todd, Jekyll/Hyde, Old Buks in Valley Song, Michael in I Do! I Do! and Hotspur in Henry IV, Part I.

H. Russ has taught/guest lectured at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of Houston, Texas Tech University, Illinois State University, North Carolina School of the Arts, Nicolet College, Spoon River College and Western Illinois University. He holds a B.S. degree from Texas A&M University and an M.F.A. degree in Acting from Western Illinois University.
His greatest source of pride, however, is his beautiful wife, Elizabeth, and his amazing kids, Grant and Auben.

“Love is my Sword, Faith is my Armor & Humor is my Shield.”

Mike Speck

Mike Speck is a professional actor, stage manager, and fight choreographer, and an MFA graduate of Western Illinois University.  There, he trained with DC Wright in stage combat and with Bill Kincaid in Unrehearsed Shakespeare technique, before graduating in 2005.
Mike’s performances and choreography have been seen across the eastern half of the US.  Highlights include ensemble work in the Guthrie Theater’s production of Major Barbara, as well as Ko-Ko in The Mikado (Theater at Monmouth), Old Tom in The Lost Colony, and Friar Lawrence/Lord Capulet in Romeo & Juliet (GMT Productions).  He created the roles of Aaron Grigsby and John Wilkes Booth in the world premiere of Lincoln at the Lincoln Amphitheatre in Indiana.

Unrehearsed credits include Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Northumberland in Richard II, and the Bishop of Canterbury/French King in Henry V; Mike also directed/coordinated an unrehearsed production of 2 Henry IV while at the Lincoln Amphitheatre.  At the 2009 Bard in the Barn festival, he will be playing [not telling] in the production of [redacted until October!].

Mike is currently doing coursework in Project Management and Arts & Cultural Management at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota; he serves as the Mid-America Regional Representative for the Society of American Fight Directors, and as co-coordinator of the SAFD’s newest regional workshop, Carnage in the Corn.

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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