2024 Teaching Staff
Teachers
J. Allen Suddeth
Single Sword
J. Allen Suddeth has worked professionally for the past fourty years out of the New York area. For Broadway, he has staged fights for the smash hits “Disney’s Aladdin,” and “Newsies,” and the recent hit, “Pretty Woman,” plus the recent revival production of Jekyll and Hyde, as well as Gem Of The Ocean, Saturday Night Fever, Jekyll & Hyde, Angels in America Part One and Two, Loot, Saint Joan, A Small Family Business, and Hide and Seek. Off - Broadway he has worked on productions for The Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons, The New Group, Theater For A New Audience, The Public Theater, The Duke, BAM, The Woman’s Project, Ensemble Studio Theater, Second Stage, Riverside Shakespeare, Jean Cocteau Repertory, WestBeth, The Pearl Theater, Cherry Lane Theatre, and the New York Theater Workshop. Regionally, and in LORT theater he has worked for Centerstage in Baltimore (over 70 productions), The Arena Stage and The Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D. C., as well as The Denver Center, The Huntington Theatre, The Papermill Playhouse, The Hartford Stage, The Alliance Theatre, The Cleveland Playhouse, The Goodman Theater, The Actor’s Theater Of Louisville and The Cincinnati Playhouse In The Park, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Northshore Music Theater, and the Big Apple Circus, among many others. As a master teacher, Allen has been on faculty for The Juilliard School, Mason Gross School of The Arts at Rutgers University, The Lee Strasberg Institute/NYU, S.U.N.Y. Purchase College, and The Stella Adler Conservatory, as well as being a frequent guest artist at major universities and workshops in the US and abroad. For television, he has staged action sequences for over 750 programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, and HBO. He is the author of “Fight Directing For The Theater,” published by Heinemann Press. Allen has also taught at the National Stage Combat Workshop for sixteen years, and is the founder of the National Fight Directors Training Program. Allen is also a producer of The Complete Unarmed Stage Combat DVD Library. He has trained over 10,000 students, and tested many thousands more. He is ranked as Fight Master in the United States by The Society of American Fight Directors. He is also an “Honourary Fight Master” with Fight Directors Canada, and a “Fellow and Life Member” of the British Academy of Dramatic Combat.
Jacqueline Halloway
Quarterstaff
Jacqueline Holloway (she/her) is an NYC based Fight Director and Intimacy Professional. She has staged fights and intimacy for Barrington Stage, Interact, Shakespeare in Clark Park, Passage Theater, Theater Exile and many others. As a teacher she teaches stage combat and is the intimacy coordinator for the graduate theater program at Columbia University. She also works regularly with Princeton University, NYU, Lafayette college and AMDA. Jacqueline is a Fight Director with the Society of American Fight Directors where she serves as the east central regional representative and is a mentor to up and coming actor combatants. She is a certified instructor with Fight Directors Canada and is the founder and lead Instructor for her own stage combat training program, Arte Violenta, in NYC. www.arteviolenta.com
Sarah Flanagan
Testing Track
Sarah currently resides just outside of Boston, Massachusetts but works regularly throughout the greater New England area. She frequently works in other cities/towns throughout the year, including: Ellicottville, NY; Louisville, KY; Ruston, LA; and Oxford, MS.
Sarah is happy to travel for SPTs, Fight Direction, and Directing work. They love helping folks who are just starting out- whether you are looking for assisting opportunities or just want to ask questions about training or the business!
Sarah served as the Actor Combatant Representative on the 2019, 2020, and 2021 Governing Body, and is currently the Coordinator of the National Stage Combat Workshop.
Nicky Jasper
Dual Weapons
Nicky Jasper (she/they) is a Chicago-based Certified Teacher, fight choreographer, and performer. She is one of the co-founders and current Company Manager of Open Gate Movement Arts, a company whose mission is to provide high quality and accessible stage combat and movement training to the Chicago community. They are an Adjunct Professor in the Stage Combat department at Columbia College, as well as the Coordinator for the National Stage Combat Workshop.
Jess Finley
Medieval Martial Arts
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.
She currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas with her family. In-between family management and remodeling her house, she writes books and struggles (largely in vain) to get those around her to complete their assigned physical therapy exercises.
Mason Tyer
Master Classes
Mason Tyer is a director, violence director, intimacy director, and production manager living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is a Certified Teacher, Theatrical Firearms Safety Instructor, and Secretary for the Society of American Fight Directors.
Mason is a lead teaching artist for Children's Theatre Company and taught stage combat for The Guthrie, North Hennepin Community College, Art in Arms, Youth Performance Company, Bemidji Community Theatre and Open Gate Movement Arts. He has also taught at stage combat specialty workshops in Illinois, Louisiana, and Texas.
As a violence director, he has worked with Children's Theatre Company, Duluth Playhouse, Paul Bunyan Playhouse, Lakeshore Players, Children's Performing Arts, Theatre in the Round, Journey North Opera Company, GREAT, SoWashCo Summer Stock, Open Window Theatre, and numerous high schools and community theatres. Mason is also a stunt performer and coordinator for music videos and short films in Minnesota. masontyer@gmail.com.
Teaching Assistants
Rodney Rice
Jen Pan
Joe Wright
Andrew Rathgeber