Mid-America Regional Report September/October 2010

AAC and Mid-America Regional Rep Danette Baker attended the AACW at the 2010 NSCW where she SPT’d in Single Sword, Quarterstaff and S&S, renewed in Unarmed & Broadsword, and was honored to receive the award for Best Female Actor Combatant at the AACW. In August, she presented an unarmed stage combat workshop for Gunsmoke & Petticoats: an American Old West Reenactment Group. She is currently teaching the newly established stage combat class in Wichita State University’s School of Performing Arts, and will be appearing as Ruth in Blithe Spirit at Wichita Center for the Arts in November.

AC Ed Baker attended the AACW at the 2010 NSCW where he renewed in Unarmed & Broadsword and did SPTs in Single Sword, Quarterstaff and S&S. He assisted AAC Danette Baker in the unarmed stage combat workshop for Gunsmoke & Petticoats and is currently assisting her in the stage combat class at Wichita State University. In non-combat news, Ed received a Coleman Foundation Faculty Entrepreneurship Fellowship this past summer, and in August he was interviewed on www.theatreface.com: Stage Direction’s Magazine’s networking site for professional, educational and community theatre.

SAFD Friend Mark Bedell has accepted an appointment to the Board of Advisers of the Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall of Fame. He wrote and directed TWO stunt shows for Action Entertainment International this summer up in Minnesota; both shows received great acclaim in the press and are currently running.  See www.ActionEI.com for details.

SAFD Friend Peter Moore is directing the fights for the world premiere of Master Butcher's Singing Club by Marsha Norman at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, directed by Francesca Zambello, opening in September.

AAC and Member Rep Mike Speck interned at the 2010 NSCW in July, where he renewed in S&S and partnered into the ACW SPTs.  He is continuing his Arts & Project Management studies at St. Mary's University of MN (including the home stretch of his first math class in ELEVEN YEARS), and moving forward with Carnage in the Corn III, the weekend before Thanksgiving in Des Moines.  He is also teaching a pair of Shakespeare classes for Winona Community Education.