Virtual Paddy Crean 2026
Instructors
Claire Llewellyn
United Kingdom
Claire trained as an actor (way back when) and fell in love with stage combat during her first year of training. After graduating from Mountiview in 2003, Claire continued to train in stage combat with the British Academy of Dramatic Combat and realized she was WAY better at getting smacked in the face, hit with sticks, stabbed with swords (etc.), and occasionally thrown downstairs, than she was at acting, so she re-trained as a BADC teacher qualifying in 2008. Claire is an Associate Teacher and Fight Director with Rc-Annie and is a Senior Teacher and Examiner with the BADC. Between lockdowns Claire qualified as a Personal Trainer and Mental Health First Aider. She is very excited to be returning as staff at The Paddy and can’t wait to see you all there!
Emilie Guillaume
Belgium
Emilie Guillaume is a Belgian actress, stunt performer, fight choreographer, and combat teacher.
After graduating in acting from IAD (Institut des Arts de Diffusion), she combines acting with physical storytelling. She has developed her expertise through intense practice in martial arts, fencing, acrobatics, and tricking, including two years at the China Circus School in Beijing. She also attended the Paddy Crean Workshops in Canada several times and recently trained twice with the Jackie Chan Stunt Team.
Emilie works across films (La petite reine, Kika), circus( Nofit State), and theater, choreographing and performing in numerous productions such as Jeanne d’Arc, Zorro, Kung-Fu, the Knights Table... She teaches fight choreography and acrobatics for actors at IAD and keeps up a daily training routine in wushu, wing chun (black belt), fencing, tricking, boxing, silat, and wrestling.
Her work is fueled by a deep passion for movement as a powerful tool for expression and emotion.
Ian Rose
USA
Ian has arranged fights for commercials, film and stage, and been working in the New York and Philadelphia areas for over thirty years. He is a Fight Master with Fight Directors Canada and The Society of American Fight Directors. Ian has worked on Broadway (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Liev Schrieber and Janet McTeer at the Booth), the Bridewell Theatre in London, MTM Studios in Rome, Riverside Shakespeare and Interborough Repertory Theatre in New York City, the Whole Theatre in New Jersey, the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, Philadelphia Theatre Company (Adrift in Macao, Chris Durang premiere) and various projects at the Wilma, including James Ijames' FatHam (Pulitzer Prize winning production and New York Times top ten shows of 2021). Ian did fights and created the roles of La Böessiere and Picard in Curio Theatre Company’s recent Symphony for St. Georges. Ian's fights were featured in the documentary Philadelphia: The Great Experiment –Disorder. Ian was a Technical Advisor on the film A Winter’s Tale.
Ian attended his first Paddy Crean International Stage Combat workshop in 1999, fell in love with it and has been lucky to work with the Paddy community over many years, serving on the board, interning, and helping out wherever he was needed.
Jared Kirby
USA
Jared Kirby has been involved in Combat for Screen & Stage and Western Martial Arts for 25 years. He teaches in New York City (and the metro area) and has choreographed fights Off-Broadway, Nationally, in London and Sydney.
As a Fight Coordinator, Jared has worked with stars such as Peter Sarsgaard, Steve Guttenberg, Cameron Douglas and has trained performers on hit shows.
Jared currently teaches fencing at SUNY Purchase, Sarah Lawrence College, the prestigious Tom Todoroff Conservatory and NY Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. He is a Master of Arms (Maestro d’Armi) through the Martinez Academy of Arms.
Jared is the editor and one of the translators of “Italian Rapier Combat”, the first complete, professional translation of Capo Ferro, the editor for “The School of Fencing” by Domenico Angelo and annotated by Maestro Jeannette Acosta-Martínez as well as “The Gentleman’s Guide to Duelling” released in February 2014 and a reprint of Donald McBane’s “The Expert Swordsman’s Companion” released in January 2017. Most recently, Jared has co-authored “Staging Shakespeare’s Violence” with Seth Duerr and a 2nd edition of “Italian Rapier Combat” in 2021.
Jessica Erin Bennett
USA
Jessica is an Atlanta based Stunt Professional, Intimacy Director & Coordinator with credits such as: stunt doubling Billie Eilish on Swarm, Intimacy Coordinating shows such as The Big Door Prize, Swarm, & upcoming The Idea of You, Intimacy Direction for Nashville Rep's Fences and Nashville Symphony's The Jonah People, & Stunt Coordinating the Never Hike Alone Series & You're Killing Me on Showtime. Jessica is also a founding member & Key Operations with Intimacy Professionals Education Collective (IPECIntimacy.com).
Cristina Ramos
USA
Cha Ramos (she/ella) is a Drama Desk Award winning fight director (Water for Elephants), industry leading intimacy director, dramaturg, playwright, and performer, with an MFA in theatre from Columbia University. She's as likely to be found in Broadway rehearsal rooms, as on Renaissance Faire stages, as in a comfy chair writing or reading a new play. She has shared her thoughts on staged violence and intimacy on local, national, and international panels, in classrooms and workshops, for HowlRound and the New Yorker, and in three different books (The Intimacy Coordinator’s Guidebook, Dramaturgy of Sex on Stage in Contemporary Theatre, & Supporting Staged Intimacy). Her work can currently be seen on Broadway in the hit new musical comedy Death Becomes Her (fight direction) and the beloved fan favorite &Juliet (intimacy direction).
Yarit Dor
United Kingdom
Yarit is the Co-Director of Moving Body Arts, working as a Movement Director/Coach, Fight Director, and IDC-certified Intimacy Director & Coordinator across theatre, dance, opera, television, and film. She is an Associate Artist of Shakespeare’s Globe, a BASSC Stage Combat Teacher, and was awarded a Fellowship by Rose Bruford College in recognition of her contribution to the development of intimacy direction and coordination in the UK entertainment industry.
Her creative credits span leading companies, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, and major West End musicals such as Hamilton, Hadestown, A Strange Loop, Fiddler on the Roof, and Why Am I So Single. In dance and opera, she has worked with Rambert, Punchdrunk, English National Opera, and the Royal Opera House.
Yarit also leads Moving Body Arts’s educational activities and teaches at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Shakespeare’s Globe Higher Education, and the National Opera Studio.
Da'mon Stith
USA
Da'Mon is the Chief Instructor and at Austin Warrior Arts, Guild of the Silent Sword, and former President of the Historical African Martial Arts Association. His martial arts training began at the age of 6 when his father gave him his first sword. He was fascinated with martial arts and warrior culture. He began his formal training at the age of 9 in Asian martial arts and progressed into African and Middle Eastern martial arts by the age of 17, and over the ensuing decades has deepened his expertise studying arts of the Diaspora. Our courses cover many disciplines including:
Ikiri Ada (Restless Machete) Machete Fencing in the African Diaspora
- Esgrima y Machete y Bordon (Colombian machete)
- Tire Machet (Haitian Machete Avril Family
- Kokobale (Afro Puerto Rican Stick and Machete
- Shotel and Abyssinian Warrior Arts
- Takouba Sword of the Sahel
- HAMA Fundamentals
- Stick and Shield,
- Algerian Stick
- Long Stick
- Nakhtu-aa Fighting Arts of the Nile Valley
- 52 Blocks
- Capoeira
- and more
When not training and instructing, Da'Mon constructs training weaponry utilizing high-density plastic, hardwood, aluminum and steel. Additionally, Da'Mon is an instructor during the summer for Book People's Camp Half-Blood literary camp.
D'Arcy Smith
USA
D’Arcy Smith is the creator of Vocal Combat Technique(tm), a technique to help actors create vocally aggressive sounds in the healthiest way possible. His work in the area has been published in The Journal of Voice. He has helped hundreds of actors to go to vocal extremes including screaming, grunts, growls, etc. Smith was invited by the vocal health team for the US Navy in San Diego to find methods to help drill instructors better use their voices.
As a voice, text and dialect coach he has worked on hundreds of professional theatrical productions. He was the resident voice coach at the Guthrie Theater and voice coach for numerous professional acting companies in the US, Canada and New Zealand His teaching credits include workshops nationally as well as in the U.K., Canada, New Zealand and Malaysia. He is a Professor of Acting and Voice at the University of Cincinnati. He teaches classes in Voice-over acting, Acting for the Camera, Acting for Motion Capture, Dialects, Voice for videogames and Vocal Combat: Vocal Extremes for the Actor.
As a videogame voice director and coach he has worked with Riot Games, Digital Extremes, Parallel, Ubisoft, 343 Industries, Ninja Theory and other game developers.
He is training other teachers in the method, promoting innovative training based on research and vocal health best practices.
Siobhan Richardson
Canada
Siobhan certified as a Vocal Combat Technique™ in the first cohort of instructor certifications, in 2023. She was rivetted by the ability to use the voice in such extremes when she first experiences D’Arcy’s method many years ago, and is delighted to be able to add this to her craft as a stage combat performer, director and instructor.
As a fight director and/or intimacy director, Siobhan has worked with The Canadian Opera Company (where she is the resident Fight and Intimacy Director), The Shaw Festival, the National Arts Centre, The Stratford Festival, Native Earth Performing Arts, Tarragon Theatre, Factory Theatre, Soulpepper, Canadian Musical Theatre Projects, The Grand Theatre (London, ON), Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company, Young Peoples’ Theatre, Starvox Entertainment, and The Grand Theatre (London, Ontario) to name a few.
She’s also an actor/fighter/singer/dancer, and an internationally recognized stage combat and intimacyinstructor, having completed 3 European tours including France, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and Finland. She’s an “industry legend” (Aisling Murphy, Intermission Magazine) and a pioneer voice in Intimacy, who has been instrumental in bringing these practices into common use in the industry.
Siobhan sees fight and intimacy direction as a support to joyful creativity, where clear communication and artistic exploration makes space for adventurous exploration. Now with Vocal Combat coaching added to her skillset, she loves exploring how storytelling can be made even more specific with extreme vocal choices.
Brad Waller
USA
In the fall of 1988, Brad Waller moved to Washington D.C. and became a Reader at the Folger Shakespeare Library. After 30 years of working as a choreographer for the Folger Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre, the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera, Arena Stage, and the Washington Ballet—as well as teaching Historical Martial Arts and Stage Combat at the Shakespeare Theatre, the Academy for Classical Acting, and many years as an adjunct professor at George Mason University—Brad wanted to make his retirement a research endeavor that would give back to the cultural and educational institutions that had given him so very much over the years.
Casey Kaleba
USA
Casey Kaleba has staged movement, intimacy, and fights for nearly six hundred productions in theatre, musical theatre, opera, and media. A Certified Teacher and Fight Director with the Society of American Fight Directors, Casey has staged fights for knights, musketeers, princesses, zombies, wolves, pirates, ninjas, and at least one alien tentacle. He has worked throughout the United States, and has been a guest instructor for both Fight Directors Canada and the Nordic Stage Fight Society. He served as an audition choreographer for Marvel Universe Live, smashed fruit on the YouTube show Men At Arms: Reforged, and this workshop will mark thirty years of association with the Paddy Crean workshop. In his spare time Casey holds a PhD in Theatre History and lectures on both film and theatre
Zev Steinrock
USA
Zev Steinrock is a fight director, intimacy director, teacher, and performer, currently serving as an Assistant Professor of Acting at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He holds certifications from the Society of American Fight Directors, and Intimacy Directors & Coordinators, and is a recipient of the Paddy Crean Award and Darrel Rushton Teaching Award for his contributions to the field of stage combat. Zev has been invited to present his research into trauma-informed choreography practices most recently to the SAFD College of Fight Masters, and at the National Stage Combat Workshop. National Fight and Intimacy Direction credits include South Coast Repertory Theatre, Paper Mill Playhouse, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival, Arkansas Shakespeare Festival, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, The Williamston Theatre, and Definition Theatre Company.
Jonathan Ezra Rubin
USA
Jonathan Ezra Rubin is a Certified Teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD) and Certified Intimacy Director with Intimacy Professionals Education Collective (IPEC). He freelances as a Fight & Intimacy Director throughout the Washington, DC-Metro Area, currently hosting classes and choreographing under his company, Fire & Ice Movement Arts. A four-time Award Nominee for Outstanding Choreography, Jonathan is an Associate Member of SDC, the national directors/choreographers union, and is a licensed professional wrestler in the State of Maryland. Jonathan has nearly 15 years of experience as an executive-level nonprofit arts administrator and works full-time as the Managing Director for the Theatre Consortium of Silver Spring, as well as serving as the SAFD’s Treasurer and Development Department Co-Chair, and as IPEC’s Director of Finance & Administration. Jonathan is also the Co-Coordinator of both the Fight Director Training Workshop, and the Mid-Atlantic Melee, which are both held annually in Maryland.
D Granke
USA
D is a New England based Director, Fight Director, Intimacy Director, and Movement Specialist.
Directing Credits include: A Clockwork Orange (Jobsite Theatre) Ready Steady Yeti Go (Stageworks) Picnic (True North) Macbeth and Richard III (Tampa Shakes) Beruit and Blue Surge (Cena/Cenari) Bethany and Tender Napalm (TRT2) and Everybody and A Pirate's Life for She (University of Maine) US Drag, They Don't Pay We Won't Pay, The Wolves, and She Kills Monsters (Theatre USF) As well as four seasons of Unto these Hills Outdoor Drama.
Selected Fight Direction credits include: The Black Suits (Joe's Pub), Born Yesterday, Morning After Grace, and The Little Foxes (Asolo Repertory Theatre), FLY and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Florida Studio Theatre), The Piano Lesson, The Mountain Top, and Dearly Departed (Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe), Vietgone, The Invisible Hand and Bad Jews (American Stage), The Niceties, Dry Land, Dike, and Pilgrims (Urbanite), Moriarty (freeFall), Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Richard the III (Tampa Shakes), The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety and In the Blood (Stageworks), As You Like It, A Skull In Conemarra, and Gloucester Blue (Jobsite Theatre), Don Giovanni, Faust, Il Trovatore, Carmen, Tales of Hoffman, and La Boheme (St Petersburg Opera), Once Upon a Bride There was a Forest (True North) Voodoo Macbeth and Take Me Out (Studio 620), A View from the Bridge (Tampa Rep), Appropriate (Three Bone Theatre) and Unto these Hills and Time of War (Cherokee Historical Association)
Intimacy Direction Credits include: The Cake and In the Next Room (Studio at Tierra Del Sol) Carmen (Opera Orlando) Vietgone (American Stage), Sender, At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen, and Pilgrims (Urbanite Theatre), Ruby (Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe), Silent Sky (True North), Inside Man (Schoolhouse Arts at Sebago Lake), and Stupid F!@#ing Bird (Tampa Rep)
They hold a BFA from the University of Michigan, and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. They currently teach Acting, Directing, Voice, and Movement at the University of Maine, and previously served on faculty at the University of South Florida. They are certified as a teacher and fight director by the SAFD. They were certified in intimacy with Intimacy Directors International and served as one of their lead instructors, and sit on the certification board for Intimacy Professionals Education Collective.
Samantha Kaufman
USA
Samantha Kaufman (she/her) is an intimacy director, fight director, and teaching artist. She is based in Chicago and works internationally. Samantha is a Certified Intimacy Director with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators. A Certified Teacher, Fight Director, and Theatrical Firearms Safety Instructor with the Society of American Fight Directors. A Jeff Award-nominated fight choreographer. An award-winning actor. An award-winning indie stunt coordinator. A certified Michael Chekhov teacher with the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium. Regionally, Samantha has worked with theatres such as Steppenwolf Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Prague Shakespeare Company, among others. She was among the first wave of intimacy professionals certified by Intimacy Directors International in 2018. She has taught intimacy workshops at over 50 universities across the United States. SamanthaJKaufman.com
Roberto Martinez-Loyo
Mexico
Roberto Martinez-Loyo has studied Western Martial Arts since 2003. As a youngster, he studied Tae Kwon Do for many years, both in Mexico and in Upstate NY, USA. In 2001 he trained as a professional stunt performer with the United Stuntmen’s Association, and has worked professionally since then. He has acquired further training with several other instructors, becoming both a stunt performer and a stunt coordinator.
A member of the IOSP (International Order of the Sword and Pen), Art of Combat (Lansing Chapter), Western Martial Arts Coalition, and the HEMA Alliance,he was the co-founder and head instructor of the Brotherhood of Warriors (Hermandad de Guerreros) and is co-founder and one of two head instructors for EFC-Mexico (Elite Fencing Club). He has taught at several workshops and seminars both in Mexico and abroad, such as the National Western Martial Arts Seminar (SAMO) and the Underground Fencing, amongst others, as well as giving private instruction and offering workshops as invited instructor in different events. Internationally, he has been asked to teach at prestigious events such as the Fechtschule America 2012, the COMBATCON, the Sentiment du Fer, the Pacific North West HEMA Alliance Gathering ,the HEFFAC Event 2013, SoCal and Dijon 2014. He has also been asked as invited instructor at AMEK and Arts of Mars.
Roberto continues his instruction and training in HEMA by participating regularly in different venues and tournaments such as the International Sword and Martial Arts Convention (ISMAC), the First Open International Gathering, the Fechtshule America, the Combat Con (where he came in third at the 2011 and first in the 2012 longsword tournament) and the Paddy Crean Workshop, amongst many others.
He is currently developing a fighting system with the Chimalli and Maquahuitl (Aztec Shield and Sword), developing it based on interpretation of available codex and images, as well as practical understanding of the weapon system, working alongside different people to develop “safe” training wasters for these weapons.
Samantha Egle
USA
Samantha is a movement director and instructor specializing in dramatic combat and intimacy for the stage. Her greatest passion lies in advocacy and enhancing an artistic process through empowerment and enabling all artists’ agency. All her work is developed to be safe, sustainable, and story driven and is curated from the belief that creativity abounds within boundaries.
In addition to being a Certified Teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors, is an Advanced Actor Combatant with Fight Directors Canada and has trained with The Nordic Stage Fight Society, the Society of Australian Fight Directors and the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat. She was an apprentice with Intimacy Directors International, has studied with Theatrical Intimacy Education. She is a Certified Intimacy Director with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators. Her work has been seen on the stages of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Opera Colorado, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Phamaly Theatre Company, Colorado Springs Fire Arts Center, Theatreworks at UCCS, Arvada Center for Arts and Humanities, Denver Children’s Theatre, Athena Project Festival, Lagoon Theme Park, Upstart Crow, New York Fringe Festival, The BiTSY Stage, Mizel Center for Arts and Culture, University of Denver, University of Northern Colorado, University of Colorado Boulder, and numerous other educational institutions in Colorado. She was a Resident Artist as an Intimacy Director at Arena Stage. She served as co-producer of the Social Distance Showdown Workshops. She is the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the International Order of the Sword and the Pen and is the co-workshop coordinator of the Paddy Crean International Workshop and producer of the Virtual Paddy Crean Workshop. She is the founder of Humble Warrior Movement Arts and consistently works supporting productions across the Rocky Mountain Front Range and facilitating in-person and virtual educational experiences.
Lyndall Grant
Australia
Lyndall Grant is a fight director, movement director, actor and motion capture specialist with a fight directing career spanning 16 years in Australia and Internationally. She trained as an actor at London’s ArtsEd School of Acting, and then specialised in fight performance and movement from 2007. Lyndall is an accredited teacher with the British Academy of Dramatic Combat and recently-elected president of the Society of Australian Fight Directors. In 2013 she founded Captivate Action, which trains actors in stage/screen combat and motion capture in Australia and the U.K. Lyndall teaches stage combat at the Victorian College of the Arts, WAAPA, NIDA Open, and was recently a guest instructor at the Paddy Crean International Stage Combat Workshop in Canada. She has also taught extensively at workshops and institutions across the U.K., Norway, Sweden and Austria. As a performer, Lyndall was Movement Captain, ensemble member, principal role cover and aerialist in Melbourne’s production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child from 2018-2022.
Recent fight/movement credits include MJ The Musical, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Michael Cassel Group); Oscar (The Australian Ballet); Rusalka (Opera Australia, West Australian Opera); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, A Christmas Carol, Sunset Boulevard, Groundhog Day The Musical, Death of A Salesman, An American in Paris, 2:22 A Ghost Story (GWB); Beauty and the Beast (Disney Australia); Destiny, Much Ado About Nothing, Never Have I Ever, The Robot Dog, Cost of Living, Topdog/Underdog, The Almighty Sometimes, 37, My Sister Jill, A Very Jewish Christmas Carol, Is God Is, Sunday, As You Like It, Berlin, The Lifespan of a Fact, The Architect, Cosi, Torch the Place, The Lady in the Van, Astroman, Lillith the Jungle Girl, Straight White Men, Melbourne Talam, Macbeth, Hungry Ghosts (Melbourne Theatre Company); Cruel Intentions the Musical (David Venn Enterprises); Troy; The Birds; Nosferatu, Looking for Alibrandi, Atlantis, The Return, Because the Night and Cloudstreet (Malthouse Theatre); 37 (Queensland Theatre Company); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, Sunday, Is God Is, Lord of the Flies, Cosi (Sydney Theatre Company), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, Blackout Songs, The Way Things Are (Red Stitch); Il Viaggio A Reims (Opera Australia); Things I Know to Be True (Theatre Works); Milked, True West, Two Remain, Punk Rock (45 Downstairs), The Importance of Being Earnest (Theatre Royal Haymarket, U.K.), Alice in Winterland, The Wind in the Willows, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe (Rose Theatre Kingston, U.K.), Henry IV Part 1 (St. James Theatre, U.K.).
Kev McCurdy
United Kingdom
Kev is an Equity Registered Fight Director of 25 yrs,
stage combat tutor of 35 yrs & co-founder of The
Academy of Performance Combat.
Kev teaches at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and has been a guest instructor at universities in Oklahoma and Missouri plus workshops in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Canada and Australia.
Kev is a very proud affiliate of The Paddy Crean and has been involved with the IOSP as a participant, a TA and full instructor since 1999. Theatre includes: Sister Act (UK tour, London
Palladium & Dominion Theatre); Les Misérables (Sondheim Theatre); Phantom of The Opera (Her Majesty’s Theatre); Barbarians, Mandela, Hamlet, Nora- A Doll’s House, The Homecoming, Fairview, The Little Foxes (Young Vic); Jitney (Old Vic); A Streetcar Named Desire, West Side Story, Billy Elliot (Curve Theatre); Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘em (UK tour); Moreno
(Theatre 503); Nine Night (Leeds Playhouse); Gunpowder (Tower Of London / Layered Reality); Guardians of The Galaxy (Secret Cinema); Trouble In Butetown, The Fear Of 13 (Donmar Warehouse); Brokeback Mountain (Soho Place); The Wizard Of Oz (London Palladium / UK tour); The Beaux Strategem, The Muthafu**er With The Hat, Anthony And Cleopatra, Othello, Til The Stars
Come Down, The Playboy Of The Western World (National Theatre); Tambo and Bones (Stratford East); Carrie The Musical, Julius Caesar (Richard Burton Theatre) Macbeth (Bristol Old Vic); Enemy Of The People (Duke Of York’s Theatre); Out Of
Season (Hampstead Theatre); One Man Two Guvnors (Everyman Open Air Festival); An Officer And A Gentleman (UK tour); Player Kings (Noel Coward Theatre / UK tour); All About Eve (Noel Coward Theatre); The Lightning Child, Eyam, The Duchess Of Malfi, Othello, Edward II, All’s Well That Ends Well, Romeo and Juliet, The Crucible (Shakespeare’s Globe): The Play That Goes Wrong (Duchess Theatre); Red Pitch (Bush Theatre / Soho Place); Wolves On Road (Bush Theatre); Romeo & Juliet & Brigadoon (Regents Park Open Air Theatre); Stranger Things: The First Shadow (Phoenix Theatre); O Island, Ivy
Tiller-Squirrel Killer, The Box Of Delights, The Tempest, Cymbelline, Othello, The Buddha Of Suberbia, Hamlet Hail To The Thief (RSC); Born With Teeth, All My Sons (Wyndham’s Theatre); The Hunger Games On Stage (Troubadour Canary Wharf / Runaway Entertainment / Lionsgate Films)
Opera includes: Bajazet (Irish National Opera tour); Carmen, The Barber Of Seville (Garsington Opera); Rigoletto, Don Giovanni, Jenufa, Candide (Welsh National Opera); Jephta, Rigoletto, Don
Giovanni, Bajazet (Royal Opera House); Semele, Don Giovanni, Saul, Falstaff, Le Nozze di Figaro, Káta Kabanová, Il Barbiere Di Siviglia (Glyndebourne) Carmen (Waterperry Opera)
Film includes: Season Of The Witch, John Carter Of Mars, Protein, The Mill Killers, The Lady Of Heaven. Television includes: Eastenders; Dr Who; The Pact S2; Hollyoaks; The A List S2; Until I Kill You; Pobol Y Cwm; Bariau S1 & 2; The Undisclosed War; Believe Me.
Jess Finley
USA
Jess Finley has been studying the martial arts of medieval Germany for more than twenty years.
Currently the head instructor at Ritterkunst Turhalle in Lawrence, Kansas, she began training Medieval Swordsmanship under Christian Tobler of Selohaar Fechtschule in February of 2003, and has achieved the rank of provost. While Jess has experience teaching every weapon in the medieval German arsenal, she is perhaps best known for her knowledge of unarmed combat through her study of medieval German wrestling. She has published a book on the fifteenth century German Master Ott's wrestling treatise under the title "Medieval Wrestling," and also has a background studying Judo under the tutelage of Arden Cowherd of Topeka Judo Club.
Jess has taught and competed internationally at events like the Western Martial Arts Workshop in Chicago, USA; Paddy Crean International Workshop in Banff, Canada; Swordfish in Gothenburg, Sweden; and Longpoint in Baltimore, USA and has taught intensives at various events and schools, as well as weekend private intensives at her home.
In addition to her scholarly work on medieval martial arts, Jess also researches medieval clothing construction and fabric armor, and has presented her findings at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, and has published an article in Medieval Clothing and Textiles (Boydell and Brewer) on her study of a 15th century quilted armor.
