2026 Melee Teaching Staff
Instructors
Leraldo Anzaldua
LERALDO ANZALDUA is a Fight Master, Fight Director, and Certified Teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD) an Intimacy Director, and a Fight Choreographer with Stage Directors & Choreographers society (SDC). Theatres: Prague Shakespeare Company, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Alley Theatre, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Houston Grand Opera, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Geva Theatre of Rochester, Syracuse Stage and more. Motion Capture performer and fight director: Sony Pictures International in Tokyo, Japan. Motion Capture Fight Director & Talent: video games in Stockholm & Uppsala, Sweden. Voice Over performer for anime: Hulu, Netflix, Crunchyroll, HiDive, Cartoon Network: Adult Swim. Notable titles: Kei Tsukishima – Haikyu!, Ryo Kurokiba – Food Wars!, Noda – Angel Beats, Takashi Komuro – High School of the Dead, Largo – One Piece, and many more! www.leraldoanzaldua.com
He has received a Master’s Degree in Acting from the University of Houston. He is currently an Associate Professor of Movement and Stage Combat with the Dept of Theatre & Dance at Indiana University.
Casey Kaleba
Casey Kaleba has arranged fights, movement, and intimacy for nearly six hundred productions including the Guthrie Theatre, Washington National Opera, Spoleto Festival, Round House Theatre, Wolf Trap Opera, Folger Theatre, Glimmerglass Festival, Northern Stage, Olney Theatre Center, and Signature Theatre. He has received Helen Hayes nominations for productions at Keegan Theatre, Constellation Theatre, Avant Bard, and We Happy Few, and currently teaches at Mary Washington University, the University of Maryland, and Montgomery College. A Certified Teacher and Fight Director with the SAFD, he also holds a PhD in Theatre History and is a full member of SDC. Over the last twenty years he has rumbled dancing gangs, swashbuckled musketeers, stabbed Beasts of London and exploded a dozen Farrah the Fairies, dismembered every limb, poisoned fifty Romeos, stabbed too many sopranos and not enough tenors. www.toothandclawcombat.com
Samantha Kaufman
Samantha (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, and 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
Bess Kaye
Bess is a Fight and Intimacy Director and Stage Combat instructor based in DC. She is a Senior Company member at the Noble Blades Stage Combat Troupe where she loves teaching fight and intimacy workshops. She is also the resident Theatrical Intimacy Educator at the Shakespeare Theater Company’s Academy MFA program. Bess’s stories of love and violence have appeared at Olney Theater Center, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Monumental Theatre Company, Flying V, the Washington Stage Guild, Avant Bard, and Devil's Isle Shakespeare. She holds an MFA in Classical Acting from STC. thebesskayescenario.com
Craig Lawrence
Craig Lawrence is a Certified Teacher with the SAFD, and loves his job. He's taught at a long list of workshops, a few fantastic major theaters, a lot of local theaters, and a plethora of collages and high schools in the DC area. When not working his teaching skills, he's behind the camera at FightGuy Photography. It's a joy and a privilege to be teaching in another SAFD workshop.
Zhenya Leverett
Zhenya Leverett is a Certified Teacher with the British Academy of Stage & Screen Combat (BASSC) and teaches at RADA, the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, and IDFight. She has also taught at the British National Stage Combat Workshop, the New York Summer Sling and Lonestar Smash in Dallas. She is an accomplished fight coordinator, having choreographed fights for theatre and film productions across the UK. As an actress, she is known for her role as Agniya in the BAFTA-winning TV series Killing Eve. She is the Creative Director at Acting Action Ltd and co-coordinator of The Claymore, an annual action workshop in Scotland. Her article “The Power of Teaching: Why Do You Want to Be a Stage Combat Teacher?” was recently featured in the SAFD journal The Fight Master.
Eric D. Pasto-Crosby
Eric D. Pasto-Crosby is a proud native of Nashville, he graduated from University of Colorado at Boulder with a B.F.A. in performance studies. There he studied stage combat and fight choreography under Fight Master Geoffrey Kent, and later with Fight Master Richard Ryan. He has choreographed fights for: Nashville Opera, Nashville Children’s Theatre, Belmont University, Vanderbilt University, Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre, Street Theatre, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Tennessee Shakespeare Festival, Tennessee Repertory Theatre(Nashville Rep), People’s Branch Theatre, Blackbird Theatre, Woven Theatre, and was fight captain and co-choreographer for: Stage One: The Louisville Children’s Theatre, and The Colorado Shakespeare Festival. A loyal member and certified advanced actor combatant through the Society of American Fight Directors, he has choreographed violence and stunts for many films, and schools in the Nashville area, as well as being the stage combat instructor for Belmont University for the last 11 years. He is also a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.
Nigel Semaj
NIGEL SEMAJ (they/them/theirs) is a Baltimore-based director, movement director, choreographer, and Assistant Professor of Performance at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Their movement work has been seen on theatre stages, opera productions, and short films. Notable Baltimore credits include Choreographer, Adapter, and Producer for Call Me By Any Other Name…Just As Sweet, a queer adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; Performer with Truepenny Projects’ SALTY AJ CLAUSS, in which they portrayed Kit the Fox; and Choreographer for Submersive Theater’s SUBMERGED: Chapter Seven – Voyages at the National Aquarium. Upcoming projects include the serpent under’t, a dance-theatre adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and a remounting of 10,000 Moor, an exploratory, gender-swapped adaptation of Titus Andronicus. They have two loving hellhounds Persephone & Orpheus and make a mean Old Fashioned.
Mason Tyer
Mason Tyer is a director, stunt coordinator, and intimacy director based in Minneapolis. He is a Fight Director, Certified Teacher, Theatrical Firearms Safety Instructor, and the Secretary for the Society of American Fight Directors.
An associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Mason has worked with Minnesota Opera, Children's Theatre Company, Duluth Playhouse, Paul Bunyan Playhouse, Journey North Opera Company, GREAT, Open Window Theatre, Theatre in the Round, and numerous high schools, community theatres, and Minnesota film productions.
Mason is a lead teaching artist for Children's Theatre Company and has taught at The Guthrie, CTAM, North Hennepin Community College, and at stage combat specialty workshops across the country. He serves as the assistant coordinator for The Fight Director Training Workshop and the Brawl of America workshop. musesfire.com
Associate Instructors
James Finley
James Finley is an actor, and fight and intimacy choreographer who has been working in the DC area for over 20 years. He and his work have been seen on many area stages, including with Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club, AvantBard, NextStop, Keegan, Rorschach, Flying V, and Constellation Theatres. He has achieved Advanced Actor-Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors, is a member of the International Order of the Sword and the Pen, and licensed as a Professional Wrestler in MD and VA, performing as "Dragonheart" Jim Finley.
Melanie Liebetrau
Melanie (she/her) is a stage combat instructor, choreographer, and occasional performer based out of NYC. She has a BFA in acting from UW-Milwaukee, and completed the 3-year professional acting conservatory at the Stella Adler Studio - where she now leads the stage combat program. Her expertise has also been employed at Columbia University, the Lee Strasberg Institute, numerous regional workshops, and more. Her background in movement stems from martial arts, dance, gymnastics, etc. She holds the rank of advanced actor combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors, and is a proud member of AEA.
Sydney Schwindt
Sydney Schwindt is a fight director, actor, and educator with 20 years of stage combat experience. She is an Advanced Actor Combatant and former Program Developer for the Society of American Fight Directors. Sydney also has certifications with the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat, Stage Combat Deutschland, and is a member of Independent Drama. She was the stage combat instructor at the ACT Graduate Program prior to its closure and visiting professor at Indiana University in the fall of 2022 teaching physical comedy, movement, and fight choreographing productions. She was a Resident Artist and engagement team member with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival for a decade before moving out of state. Sydney is on the advisory board for the Same Boat Theatre Collective, an international environmental theatre group. She holds a BFA from the Hartt School. Credits include American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Livermore Shakespeare Festival, B Street Theatre, Pocket Opera, Vintage Theatre, and others.
Chase Whitehurst
Chase Whitehurst is, first and foremost, a weird little gremlin freak. They are also a martial artist, performer, and choreographer with nearly a decade of experience. Beginning in kiddie taekwondo at 10, they have since studied hapkido, Kali/Arnis, Silat, and others - teaching and choreographing at theatres and universities all across North Carolina.
Teaching Assistants
Matthew Crawford
Matthew Crawford is a DMV based actor and teaching artist. After attaining his BA in Theatre, he has been performing professionally since 2010 and teaching since 2018. He is a certified Advanced Actor Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors and has applied that training performing in shows and as fight director for numerous productions. Specializing in Shakespeare, you will often find him performing at the Maryland Renaissance Festival as a member of the Company of the Rose acting company and fighting alongside their militia. He has attended various stage combat workshops, including working at Mid-Atlantic Melee as a PA for the past two years!
Adi Fawk
Adi Fawk is a graduate from the University of California San Diego with a BA in Theatre, with a focus in Directing and Shakespeare. They are an Advanced Actor Combatant with the SAFD, they teach stage combat at several middle and high schools in the LA area, and fight direct when they get the opportunity to step away from bartending. Adi's main focuses are in promoting EDI in all of their workspaces, creating open communication, and great learning environments for all.
Chris Niebling
Chris Niebling is an Touchstone Company Artist for Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC), a graduate of Oberlin College, and a member of the Society of American Fight Directors. He has worked as an actor, director, fight choreographer, intimacy coordinator, or combination thereof at numerous regional theatres including: Ally Theatre Company, Baltimore Opera Company, CSC, Catalyst Theatre Company, The Hatchery Festival, Journeyman Theatre, Live Action Theatre, National Players, Olney Theatre Center, Pallas Theatre Collective, Red Eye Gravy, Rep Stage, Rorschach Theatre, Six Flags America, Solas Nua, Washington National Opera, Washington Shakespeare Company, Alvernia College, Howard Community College, and Carroll Community College.
Jessica Pennachio
Jessica has a B.A in Theatre Performance from UNC Charlotte, and completed the Actor’s Gymnasium Professional Circus Training Program where she focused in partner acrobatics and juggling. She is a trained stunt performer and Advanced Actor Combatant with the SAFD. She has assisted stage combat classes at The Actor’s Gymnasium, Open Gate Movement Arts, Roosevelt University, Acting Studio Chicago, and at regional workshops across the country. She has performed with Babes with Blades, Collaboraction, Rough House, Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble, and the Carolina Renaissance Festival. She loves to learn and create art through the mediums of acting, makeup, and fights!
Kara Turner
Kara is a '26 D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities theatre fellow and Advanced Actor Combatant with the SAFD. Kara supports artists of all ages and abilities to use physical storytelling in their work, having taught with Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, NextStop Theatre Company, Flying V, the Metropolitan School for the Arts, and The Theatre Lab. Regionally, she acted with Rorschach Theatre, The Welders, Theatre Prometheus, and the Washington National Opera. Recent fight direction credits include Nu Sass Productions and Gettysburg College. She also makes and performs teatro lambe-lambe puppetry and is an aerialist.