Telepeer

CSUF alum takes center stage as a fight choreographer

March 22, 2023

Sword, rapier, dagger.

These are just a few of Michael Polak’s tools of the trade.

Luckily, he’s not a maniac on the loose — rather, the CSUF grad (theater arts 1993) is an actor as well as a stage and film fight choreographer.

Polak’s work recently was on display in South Coast Repertory’s production of “Appropriate,” the Branden Jacobs-Jenkins play that premiered off-Broadway in 2014.

In a climactic scene in “Appropriate,” which alternated performances with Lillian Helman’s “The Little Foxes” Feb. 5-26, estranged members of a family in present-day Arkansas with decades of resentment and pent-up anger get into a brawl.

“One thing I always ask myself is, ‘What is the story being told through violence?’ ” said Polak, whose recent film work as an actor includes “Mid-Century” (2022) starring Stephen Lang (the “Avatar” franchise).

How did a nice guy like Polak get into such a (fake) bone-breaking career?

At Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta in Santa Barbara County, Polak loved both theater and football — he played quarterback as a senior for the Chargers.

The physicality of stage movement always has appealed to him.

“Violence is another form of communication — it’s a terrible form of communication, but it happens when words break down,” said Polak, a fight choreographer for more than 20 years who’s a big fan of the intricately choreographed action movie series “John Wick,” starring Keanu Reeves.

Big lesson

It’s not that Polak has a thing for violence. He just specializes in having it faked on stage and on screen. And he honed his skills, in part, at CSUF.

While attending Dos Pueblos High School, Polak’s acting professor took him and other students on tours of four-year colleges with solid theater departments.

“I remember being impressed with Cal State Fullerton,” he said.

Sallie Mitchell, the former professor of theater and dance at CSUF, was instrumental in getting Polak to switch his major to theater arts when he became a Titan in 1991.

Initially, Polak planned to major in communications and minor in acting.

“She told me all degrees in a liberal arts program kind of all have the same weight,” Polak said.

He mostly acted at CSUF — he fondly recalls jumping sans clothes into a pseudo river in a scene in “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Knowing that an MFA would burnish his acting resume, Polak went straight to graduate school after CSUF, graduating from Penn State in 1996. One draw of Penn State: it offered classes in stage combat.

Polak then booked some jobs with the Texas Shakespeare Festival, Pacific Conservatory Theatre in Santa Maria, and ended up doing regional theater for three years in San Francisco — where his skills as a fight choreographer took off.

Polak recalls learning a big lesson from Gregory Hoffman, founder and master teacher of Dueling Arts International, a leading certification school for stage and film combat instructors.

“He was a huge mentor of mine,” Polak said.

Before class, an eager Polak had worked out on paper the details of a sword and dagger fencing scene between Hamlet and Laertes.

“Oh?” Hoffman said with a smile. “You’ve got it all choreographed already?”

Problem was, Polak had never worked with the actors, and they weren’t at the level he assumed they would be when it came to the physicality of the scene.

“It was the best lesson,” Polak said. “You must be able to assess who you’re working with first before you can choreograph anything. Like in baseball, if you want your closing pitcher to throw 100 miles per hour but he’s an off-speed pitcher, you’ve got to adjust.”

Hoffman said Polak is an exceptionally talented fight director and teacher.

“His experience as a working actor greatly assists him in helping tell the story within the staged fight that is appropriate for the scene and play itself,” Hoffman said. “I know him to be extremely dedicated to his craft and always exceptionally prepared for all his work due to his dedication to research and natural intelligence.

“And he seems to have an easy and comfortable manner of communicating with his actors, which is very important to gain their trust and create the best possible work.”

In addition to Dueling Arts International, Polak is certified by the Society of American Fight Directors.

Character-driven

After San Francisco, Polak moved to New York City where he continued to do theater.

Some TV projects over the years included roles on “The Young and the Restless,” “Guiding Light” and “Bel-Air.”

But stage work continues to be his sweet spot. In addition to SCR, Polak books a lot of work with La Mirada Theater for the Performing Arts.

He also is active at CSUF, doing some guest teaching and movement work and working with the Devised Performance/Physical Theatre program, one of the only programs of its kind in the country.

Polak works closely with directors to choreograph combat scenes.

“I always ask myself, ‘What’s the character’s relationship to violence?’ ” he said.

“What I mean is, have they ever been hit before or have they ever hit anyone before? Do they solve their problems by violence? Too often, actors just assume their character can do all sorts of cool stuff when it comes to fighting, but there’s nothing in the script that said they’ve ever hit anyone before.”

So, it’s up to Polak to make sure any combat is truly character driven.

“For ‘Appropriate,’ it was a large family fight,” he said. “And these are not people who have ever hit each other before.”

Safety is paramount in his work, Polak notes.

“You have to hide the illusion of violence,” he said.

And there’s a huge difference, Polak notes, between pushing and hitting someone.

Kind of like the difference between:

THWAPP! and WHAMMM!

Local News |

CSUF’s Veteran’s Resource Center helps women find support, build a campus community

Local News |

Partnership trains future teachers to use arts to enhance classroom subjects

Local News |