A voice rings out across the Don Powell Theatre stage early one morning at San Diego State University, issuing a terse command: “Assume the position of attention.”

But for an observer witnessing a dozen people suddenly brandish swords and daggers as they step into warrior stances, attention is not really an issue.



For the record: An earlier version of this story gave the name of one participant incorrectly. It is Katie Turner.

The weapons, as it happens, are real (more or less). But the purpose is the pursuit of art rather than some poor foe’s arteries.

This is a Tuesday session of Theatre 499, Introduction to Theatrical Sword Fighting — an SDSU class known less formally as “Foiling Around.”


The course, taught by Randi McKenzie — a retired SDSU dean and former national-level competitive fencer — is meant to emphasize that this particular strain of stage combat is more like dancing than dueling: It’s “a cooperative behavior, not a competitive event.”

And it probably soothes students’ souls to know that McKenzie, who is in her second year of leading the course as a volunteer, promises: “All will learn to live to fight another day.”

For Katie Turner, a lecturer and undergraduate adviser in the university’s School of Theatre, Television and Film (which hosts “Foiling Around”), the dance connection helps define the difference between stage swordfighting and its parent discipline of fencing.

“A lot of the principles are the same — footwork and posture and how you handle the weapon,” says Turner, who began taking the course herself last school year and has become a devotee.


“But the goal is completely different. In fencing you’re trying to score points by making contact with your opponent’s body. In theatrical swordfighting, you’re following choreography and working with your partner and trying to avoid contact unless it’s part of the routine.”

“It’s just like dance. Except there are more pointy objects.”



Flair for drama

When McKenzie showed up at a new-student orientation at SDSU in the fall of 2018 to recruit her first theatrical fight partner, she came armed with a winner of a pitch.

“I went and said: ‘My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!’”


The fact she thought to deliver those signature words from the revenge-minded swordsman in the movie “The Princess Bride” is pretty impressive for a fencer who didn’t think to apply her own skills to the performing arts until she was well into her academic career. In fact, McKenzie still has never performed fight scenes in a full stage production herself.

Marquice Perrera (left) and Leilani Snow practice their skills during the “Foiling Around” class at SDSU. (Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Born in L.A. and raised in Ohio, McKenzie had her first fencing class in high school, partly because “I loved the uniform.” Plus, “you could hide behind a mask, and there were only a certain number of moves” to learn.

Later, at Kent State University, McKenzie entered a fencing tournament, came in third and began taking up the sport again in earnest. Eventually, as her career in academia took root, she taught and coached fencing as part of her job.


By the mid-1990s, McKenzie had won second place in the open division of women’s saber fencing at the U.S. championships. At that point, she also had done some training with the Society of American Fight Directors — having vowed that “before I die, I want to be onstage.”

(Her first stage credit, McKenzie says, was as the front end of a horse in a kabuki play.)

For several years, she served as an adjunct faculty member with the renowned Old Globe/University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program, teaching theatrical swordfighting to master’s candidates there.

But not long after she retired from SDSU in 2016 — following a distinguished career that culminated in a 10-year stint as an assistant dean for student affairs — McKenzie became “so depressed, because I enjoyed my work and I had just burnt myself out. And I had prematurely retired.”


So, “I asked the theater department: For a dollar, could I come and teach swordfighting?”

Enter Inigo Montoya.

McKenzie recalls that when she asked for a fight partner at that student orientation, “all these hands went up. And I said, ‘Wow, I’ll just teach them all!’”

Gabe Igtanloc, who’s majoring in performance at SDSU, was one of the charter students, and is now a teaching assistant for the course.


Igtanloc actually had taken about three months of Olympic-style fencing training as a kid, but then “I quit because I was scared. And that’s when I started taking ballet.”

He got a chance to brush up on his sword skills years later with a high-school production of “Romeo and Juliet.” And now, McKenzie’s class is proving a valuable complement to his other stage disciplines.

“What I can take away from this is the necessity of being (in sync) with your partner when you’re onstage,” Igtanloc says. “I can’t make contact with your blade until you’re there for that blade to make contact. If I see that you’re clearly not safe, I’m not going to do anything to push you over the edge.

“It’s making sure your partner is safe, making sure I’m safe, making sure everything we’ve rehearsed is what we’re trying to do. That’s what I’m taking away to my acting. It’s all about that connection to your partner.”


Plus, Igtanloc says, “to sell the move, to sell the look, you need to be very grounded. And practicing that very early in the morning just sets you up for a really good day.”

The students begin each 7:30 a.m. session with warmups, then pair off to practice technique and take instruction from McKenzie, who roves around offering adjustments and pointers.

Randi McKenzie (center), a former SDSU dean and once a national-level competitive fencer, has taught the course since last fall. (Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

She’s a graceful figure with a quiet voice and a bit of an impish smile; Turner, the teacher turned student, refers to McKenzie as the “swordmistress.”


The students learn not only about different moves but different weapons: daggers and rapiers and broadswords, all of which have their places in plays from different eras and settings. (Turner hopes to bring in a production of the swordfighting-centric “Cyrano de Bergerac” at some point to capitalize on all the newfound knowledge.)

But the benefits of the course seem to extend beyond the stage as well.

Isabella Mangione, a performance major and first-time “Foiling Around” student, had no previous experience in stage combat beyond a quick scene with a broadsword in a high-school staging of “Beauty and the Beast.” (“We were fighting forks and knives,” she says with a laugh.)

So does she find there’s something both resume-broadening and generally empowering about learning her way around a weapon?


“Yeah, I feel like it’s both,” Mangione says, recalling McKenzie’s observation when she was pitching the class that it can be a powerful way to clear the mind.

“When you have someone coming at you with a sword, you’re sort of stuck in that moment. It’s like meditation, in a way.”