Tonya Lynn

Workshop Coordinator
SAFD Fight Director & Certified Teacher
SAFD Fight Director Representative

Tonya Lynn is a Pittsburgh, PA-based fight director and educator whose credits include over 170 productions, with highlights including Il Trovatore, Tosca, and Pagliacci at Pittsburgh Opera, the world premiere of Storming Heaven at West Virginia Public Theatre, the original production Sword Play at Colonial Williamsburg, VA, the Pittsburgh premiere of She Kills Monsters at the University of Pittsburgh (including a sold-out encore performance at the August Wilson Cultural Center), and 18 productions with Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks. Tonya is the recipient of the 2024 KCACTF Award for Distinguished Achievement in Fight and Intimacy Direction for ≈ [Almost Equal To] at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and a 2025 KCACTF Commendation for Excellence in Stage Combat for The Inseparables at the University of Pittsburgh. She is also active in many local theatre training programs, providing choreography on multiple occasions for Carnegie Mellon University, Point Park University, the University of Pittsburgh, Allegheny College, and many others. Tonya is a co-founder of Brawling Bard Theater (a five-time award winner at the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival), and a company member with the New Renaissance Theatre Company.  She has trained with the United Stuntmens’ Association and for over 20 years has been an active member of the Society of American Fight Directors, with whom she is recognized as a Fight Director and a Certified Teacher, where she currently serves on the Governing Body as Fight Director Representative. 

Tonya is a Teaching Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pittsburgh, and has taught as an adjunct instructor at Carnegie Mellon University, Point Park University and the Community College of Allegheny County South Campus, as well as serving as a teaching artist with Pittsburgh Public Theatre, City Theatre, Gateway to the Arts, and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. She is co-founder and Coordinator for the Allegheny Alley Fight, a regional SAFD workshop in the Pittsburgh area since 2015. She also teaches ongoing weekly private classes in stage combat which are open to all skill levels.  www.eclecticmayhem.com

Jonathan Ezra Rubin

Workshop Coordinator
SAFD Certified Teacher 
SAFD Treasurer
IPEC Certified Intimacy Director

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), who 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 three-time Helen Hayes Award Nominee for Outstanding Choreography (Flying V Fights: Heroes & Monsters, Flying V Fights: The Secret History of the Unknown World, Crystal Creek Motel), and WATCH Award Nominee for Fight Choreography (Appropriate), Jonathan works regularly in his region, having choreographed most of Flying V's shows, as well as at The Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, Mosaic Theater Company, GALA Hispanic Theatre, Adventure Theatre-MTC, Cohesion Theatre Company, 4615 Theatre Company, Pipeline Playwrights, Ex Pats Theatre, LiveArtDC, Quotidian Theatre Company, Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society, Silver Spring Stage, Colonial Players, Maryland Shakespeare Company, Lumina Studio Theatre, Vagabond Players, Georgetown University, American University, Goucher College, Anne Arundel Community College, National Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, and more. Jonathan is a proud Associate Member of The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society – a national professional theatrical union, and is a licensed professional wrestler in the State of Maryland.

In addition to his freelance career, he has over a dozen years of theatre administration and nonprofit executive management experience, which he is currently putting to use as the Co-Chair of the SAFD's Development Department and as the SAFD's Treasurer, as well as IPEC’s Director of Finance & Administration. He served as the Managing Director and then Associate Artistic Director for the nonprofit performing arts company Flying V from the tail end of 2011 through June 2020, helping to grow the company by around $300,000 in that time, as well as positioning Flying V to be awarded the 2015 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company at the Helen Hayes Awards, DC's Regional Theatre Awards. Since stepping down from the staff, Jonathan has been an active member of Flying V's Advisory Board, offering insight, institutional knowledge, and advice to the current leadership team. Jonathan also works full time as the Managing Director for the Theatre Consortium of Silver Spring, the nonprofit entity which manages the Montgomery County, Maryland-owned theatre venue, the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre, where he has been employed since December 2014. Jonathan also served as a member of the Steering Committee for the Montgomery County Executive's Ball for the Arts & Humanities in 2015 and 2016, and as a member of the Advisory Board for Faction of Fools Theatre Company from January 2017-May 2020. Jonathan has been a staff member at over 35 regional SAFD workshops across the country since 2014, in addition to assisting and/or coordinating multiple additional masterclasses in that time, including working as one of the Co-Coordinators for the Social Distance Showdown: Virtual Stage Combat Workshop, the first and largest online weekend workshop of its kind, in May 2020, as well as its 2nd iteration in October 2020. In addition to the Fight Director Training Workshop, Jonathan is also one of the Co-Coordinators for the Mid-Atlantic Melee, held in Columbia, MD each June.

Eli Lynn

Actor
Award-Winning Fight Director
IDC Certified Intimacy Director

Eli (they/them) is an actor, Intimacy Director, and award-winning fight director based in Philadelphia. Their fight and intimacy work has been seen at regional theatres including Woolly Mammoth, The Acting Company, The Wilma, Arden Theatre, PA Shakespeare Festival, People’s Light, InterAct Theatre, Theatre Exile, Philadelphia Theatre Co., and Philadelphia Artists Collective, among many others. They also choreograph and teach workshops at regional universities including UPenn, Princeton, Temple, Rutgers (Camden), Villanova, Rowan, and Arcadia. The have also directed fights for several short films, including The Tooth Fairy, which is a Toronto Global Film Festival finalist. Eli has studied stage combat for over fifteen years and has been recognized as an Advanced Actor Combatant with 5 international stage combat organizations, as well as serving as an assistant to Broadway Fight Masters Ian Rose and J. David Brimmer.

They are also an Artistic Associate with Philadelphia Artists’ Collective, where they serve as resident fight & intimacy director and sometimes write plays. Their original work Citrus Andronicus – first produced by PAC in 2023 – won three Barrymore awards, including Outstanding Choreography, and their adaptation of George Washington’s favorite play, CATO: Remixed, is set to be remounted in 2026 for the Semiquincentennial. They have a BFA in Musical Theatre from Shenandoah Conservatory.

Mason Tyer

SAFD Fight Director, Certified Teacher & Theatrical Firearms Instructor
SAFD Secretary
Workshop Assistant Coordinator

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

2025: Cha Ramos

Workshop Instructor
Drama Desk Award Winning Broadway Fight Director

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 violent and intimate theatrical storytelling 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 most recent fight direction work can be seen on Broadway in the hit new musical comedy Death Becomes Her.