By Kyle Cassady
I have been acting for a long time now. Professionally for the last 13 years but technically since my mother was pregnant with me during her production of The Mikado back in 1985, I have been acting since before birth! There are so many things about theatre that I enjoy. I have been fortunate enough to be able to earn a degree in musical theatre and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I was exposed to many areas of theatre in my time at Western Illinois University and one of those areas was stage combat.
My first ever play in college was Shakespeare’s Henry IV Pt.1 and I was thrust into one of the biggest battle scenes in a Shakespeare production. I’ll never forget the feeling of pure adrenaline I had when I held that battle axe in my hand for the first time. I thought to myself, ‘Whoah, I could get into this!”
I was very lucky to have some of the best stage combat professors in the country working at WIU such as DC Wright, Fulton Burns, Brian Letraunik, Glenn Wall, and Zack Meyer. In my five years there I learned a LOT. I was trained on broadsword, battle ax, small sword, bow staff, unarmed hand to hand combat, knife, rapier and dagger, and many more! I was even awarded the examiners award of excellence in acting from the SAFD (Society of American Fight Directors) twice! Once in 2006 for bowstaff and again in 2007 for unarmed combat. I was given the opportunity back in the summer of 2007 to choreograph professionally for the first time! Myself and Zack Meyer were given the task to choreograph the sword fight for Western SMT’s summerstock production of Little Women the musical.
Ever since then I have been choreographing anything from simple slaps to big rumbles (see what I did there West Side cast) from New York City, Chicago, to here in our back yard of Kankakee for West Side Story. I thank Jerry, Sharon, Veronica, and Ashley so very much for letting me choreograph one of the most iconic fights in musical theatre history!
I love that this is the 6th consecutive summer for me working with Acting Out Theatre Company. Also, all four of us collaborated to make the fights work out with the music, directors vision, and overall look and I must say I couldn’t be more proud of it. I couldn’t have done it without their help! I hope all of you enjoy West Side Story and I look forward to seeing you all there!!
