Joseph Travers (Founder, Instructor) (SAFD Certified Fight Director/Teacher, FDC Certified Instructor) Fight Direction: Jean Cocteau Repertory Company, Irish Repertory Theatre, National Shakespeare Company, American Globe Theatre, NYU Experimental Theatre Wing, Seaside Music Theatre, Polka Dot Playhouse, Bickford Theatre, Attic Ensemble, T. Schreiber Studios, Blue Heron Theatre, Trilogy Theatre, Gallery Players, Theatre Ten-Ten, Grove Street Playhouse, American Theatre for Actors, Wayside Theatre. Film: "Lifted" (Fox/Searchlight), "A-Alike"(MP Filmworks),"Cinco de Mayo!" (Steel Cow Films), "Peter, Peter…" (Three Dollar Films). Resident Fight Director, National Theatre of the Performing Arts. Teaching: American Musical and Dramatic Academy, Mannes College of Music, AMAS Repertory Company, SUNY Rockland. Member: Society of American Fight Directors (Certified Fight Director/Certified Teacher), Fight Directors, Canada (Certified Fight Instructor), Screen Actors Guild, Actor’s Equity Association, International Order of the Sword and Pen. Certified Instructor, American Heart Association (BLS, AED). Instructor of CPR,AED, First Aid, and Blood-Borne Pathogen Awareness, Emergency Skills, Inc., NYC. Winner 1999 “oobr” Award from the Off-Off Broadway Review. Co-creator of the critically acclaimed "Duellists: The Forgotten Champions", an evening of original one-act plays on the history of duelling.(for further credits, visit www.jt4fights.com)

Barbara Brandt (Instructor) Ms. Brandt holds an MFA in Acting from Western Illinois University. She is an Advanced Actor/Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors, holding recognition in all eight weapons styles. She has taught stage combat at Western Illinois University, The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, The Lincoln Amphitheatre, and Horse Cave Repertory Theatre. She is also associated with the New York City teaching organization Fights4 as an assistant. As a Fight Director, her work has been seen in New York City at The Jean Cocteau Rep, Theatre TenTen, and the Trinity Players Theatre as well as many theatres regionally. As a performer herself, she has been seen wielding a sword as Mary Read in Duellists: The Forgotten Champions at Theatre TenTen; in The Three Musketeers at Arkansas Rep (in which she also played Anne of Austria) as well as various other productions across the eastern half of the United States. As a regular ol' non-fighting actress, her credits include Lady MacBeth in MacBeth, Lenny in Crimes of the Heart, Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire and Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew. Barbara is also an accomplished dance choreographer. Some of her favorite credits in that arena include The Cradle Will Rock at the Jean Cocteau, the first revival of Park Avenue at Theatre TenTen and Oklahoma!, The Music Man, and Big River at The Lincoln Amphitheatre. In spite of her delight in all areas of her career, her favorite hat of all to wear is that of Mom to her young daughter, Robyn-Marie.

Rod Kinter (Instructor) Since 1995, Rod has been the Resident Fight Director with New York City Opera and in that venue has staged fights for more than 25 productions and revivals. Along with seasonal mainstays such as "Carmen" and "Don Giovanni", Rod’s work has been seen in the New York premieres of "Dead Man Walking", and "Harvey Milk", and in the televised NYCO productions of "Porgy and Bess" and "Tosca". Regional opera credits include productions for The Glimmerglass Opera, New Jersey State Opera, Opera Festival New Jersey and The San Diego Opera. New York theatrical credits include: "The Jaded Assassin", Ohio Theatre; "Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy" (Starring Cory Feldman), East 13th Street Playhouse; "Hamlet", "Romeo and Juliet", "Comedy of Errors" and "Macbeth", American Globe Theatre; "Doctor Faustus", Tribecca Theatre Lab; "Macbeth", Chekhov Theatre Ensemble; "The Brothers Karamazov", Lincoln Center Directors Lab; and "Twelfth Night","Playboy of the Western World" and the critically acclaimed "Duellists: The Forgotten Champions" (for which he was Co- Creator),Theatre Ten Ten. Regional credits include; "Romeo and Juliet",American Repertory Theatre; "Romeo and Juliet",Princeton Repertory Shakespeare Festival; "Ragtime", "West Side Story" and "Guys and Dolls",New Jersey Performing Arts Center; "Macbeth", the Rutherford Center in NJ; "The Prince and the Pauper" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer",the Barter Theatre of Virginia. Touring Productions include: "Romeo And Juliet", "The Adventures of Robin Hood", "Peter Pan" and "The Nutcracker". Rod teaches stage combat in the Opera Studio program at Manhattan School of Music. He has also been a Fight Director or Guest Instructor for the Stella Adler Actors Conservatory, Rutgers University, Mannis School of Music, Summer Theatre Institute at Columbia, SUNY Rockland and SUNY New Paltz. In January of 2005, Rod was invited by the organizers to be a guest speaker at the International Opera Convention in an effort to promote the training of opera singers in the craft of stage combat.

Ricki G. Ravitts (Instructor) (SAFD Certified Fight Director/Teacher) An actress as well as one of fewer than 40 Fight Directors recognized by the Society of American Fight Directors, Ms. Ravitts has fought, taught and/or performed in NYC, London, Milwaukee, Philadelphia & Washington DC. Recent fight direction: Femme Fatale, The Lucky Chance, Woyzeck, Romeo and Juliet, The Garden of Torment, Shake Battle and Roll and Duellists: The Forgotten Champions (Mlle. Maupin). Teaching: Private classes, Summer Sling-NYC, SAFD Nat'l Stage Combat Workshop-Las Vegas, Int'l Stage Combat Workshop-London & Tucson. Guest instructor: Yale, NYU, Vassar, Oberlin, AMDA. Favorite roles: Kate (Taming of the Shrew), Mercutio (Romeo & Juliet), Kate & Joan in The Swords of Shakespeare-Globe Theatre, London, Desiree (A Little Night Music), Amanda (Private Lives), Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), The Old Lady (Candide), Agnes (Dancing at Lughnasa), Regina (The Little Foxes), Maggie (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Helen (And a Nightingale Sang), and Lydia (Behind The Mask).

Andrew Smereck (Teaching Assistant), (SAFD Certified Actor/Combatant) Andrew's choreography, direction, performance and assistance have been seen in New York City in Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, I Hate Hamlet, Myth, A Doctor In Spite of Himself, and the feature film Shakespeare's Ghost. He has worked with NYC organizations including Columbia University, Random Arts, and A Company of Players. In Detroit, Andrew trained extensively with Ring of Steel and wrote and performed in Blackbeard's Revenge for Ringstar Productions. He has also trained with Swordplay, Fights4, and at the SAFD Stage Combat Acting Ensemble Workshop in Maine. His favorite stage combat performance was as Porthos in National Theater of the Performing Arts' touring production of The Three Musketeers.

Nathan DeCoux(Teaching Assistant), (SAFD Certified Actor/Combatant) Nathan DeCoux has been choreographing stage violence in the NYC area since 1999. Before that he was an actor, director and sometime writer who got his start at NYU’s Tisch School. After studying under such stage combat teachers as Todd Loweth, Payson Burt, J. Allen Suddeth, and Joe Travers, he has dedicated his life to the exciting art and science of fake fights. His list of favorite fight directing credits includes Within, The Advent of Darkness, I Hate Hamlet, Seascape With Sharks and Dancer, Romeo and Juliet, Paper Hearts, A Life in the Theater, and the self-penned Halftone Coffehouse Brutal Slugfest and High Tea. He has appeared in numerous NYC productions as an actor-combatant, and has supplemented his body of knowledge by studying, Kenpo, Kung-Fu, Iaido, and Jodo in his spare time.