The SAFD Governing Body
The SAFD governing body is elected by the SAFD dues paying membership and serves as an SAFD board of directors maintaining policy and direction for the SAFD. The SAFD Governing Body is constructed of two parts. The Executive Committee, consisting of the President, Vice President, Secretary & Treasurer, serve a term of three years. The four Member Representatives, consisting of a Fight Master rep, a Fight Director rep, a Certified Teacher rep and the Advanced Actor/Combatant + Actor/Combatant + Friend rep, serve a term of three years that has elections on a different cycle than the Executive Committee
John is an SAFD Certified Teacher and Fight Director currently serving as their Vice-President. He holds a Bachelors degree in performance from Illinois State University, where he was the recipient of the prestigious Jean Scharfenberg Acting Award. John has taught stage combat classes at DePaul University, Illinois State University, Ball State University, The Actor's Gymnasium, and was a Guest Artist at Roosevelt University. He has also taught at The Winter Wonderland Workshop, Seattle Sockeye, March Madness, Rumble in the Rockies, Havoc in the Heartland, the National Stage Combat Workshop and the North Carolina School of the Arts Summer Session: Introduction to Stage Combat. Currently, John teaches theatre courses at the College of DuPage and is the Executive Director of MACE - Movement and Combat Education.
Select productions that John has choreographed include Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Ragtime: The Musical (Drury Lane Oakbrook); One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Lonesome West,Summer People and Streamers (The Gift Theatre Co.); Of Mice and Men (Steppenwolf); Accomplice, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Ruthless: The Musical (Noble Fool Theatricals); Temporary Help and Communicating Doors (Buffalo Theatre Ensemble); Robin Hood and The Glory of Living (College of DuPage); In the Blood and Bat Boy: The Musical (Ball State University); and Cyrano de Bergerac (Independent Players). Select roles that John has performed include Dr. Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor (Illinois Shakespeare Festival), Ronald in The Altruists (Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co.), Gerstein in Ghetto (Famous Door Theatre Co.), Dr. Astrov in Uncle Vanya and James in That Championship Season (Independent Players). John resides in Geneva with his wonderful wife, Colleen.
H. Russ is an SAFD Certified Teacher currently serving as Head Theatre Director at Whitehouse High School in Whitehouse, TX. His areas of expertise include Acting, Musical Theatre, Playwriting, Voice/Dialects, Movement & Stage Combat.
H. Russ began his career as a fight director over 20 years ago in his native Texas. He has worked professionally in the theatre as an actor, director, set designer, vocal/movement coach, fight director and nationally award-winning playwright. H. Russ has choreographed violence for over 70 productions and his fight work has been seen from New York to California and back again.
As a playwright, H. Russ Brown has written dozens of plays and has had many produced in theatres across the country. In 2002, he was awarded the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts New Visions/New Voices award for his musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic short story, THE SELFISH GIANT. In 2005, he was awarded the Kennedy Center ACTF/NST Fellowship for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Playwriting for his comedy, STUD DUCKS & HORNY TOADS.
As a performer, his favorite roles include Sweeney Todd, Jekyll/Hyde, Old Buks in Valley Song, Michael in I Do! I Do! and Hotspur in Henry IV, Part I.
H. Russ has taught/guest lectured at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of Houston, Texas Tech University, Illinois State University, North Carolina School of the Arts, Ball State University, Lon Morris College, Nicolet College, Spoon River College and Western Illinois University. He holds a B.S. degree from Texas A&M University and an M.F.A. degree in Acting from Western Illinois University.
His greatest source of pride, however, is his beautiful wife, Elizabeth, and his amazing kids, Grant and Auben.
“Love is my Sword, Faith is my Armor & Humor is my Shield.”
Lee Soroko is a Certified Teacher and Advanced Actor Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors. Lee earned his Master of Fine Arts Degree from the Professional Actor Training Program at the University of Texas where he studied under Jim Hancock and took additional Theatre study at the Jagielonion Uniwersytet, in Krakow, Poland and Peace Haven in London.
Lee is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (SSDC) and Actors Equity Association (AEA). Areas of movement study include Alexander Technique, Laban/Bartenieff and Feldenkrais. Lee is also a 1993 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient for his work in Character Mask. He currently teaches at the University of Miami, Florida and previously was a Professor of Performance with the Savannah College of Art and Design. Prior to that Lee was an Assistant Professor at Guilford College and has taught at Yale University, North Carolina School of the Arts, New York University, Quinnipiac College and the University of Texas at Austin.
Acting and directing credits include productions with the Atlantic Theatre Company (off-Broadway), Actors Theater of Louisville, Long Wharf Theatre, State Theatre in Austin, Texas, Yale University and SCAD. As a fight director, his professional credits include productions at the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival (LORT) Savannah Shakespeare Festival (LOA), Triad Stage (LOA), as well as colleges and universities across the country.
Richard is an award winning Fight Director. He is Fight Coordinator for the recently released SHERLOCK HOLMES 2:GAME OF SHADOWS. Recent credits include TO HAVE & TO HOLD and HOMELAND. Other credits include Stunt Coordinator on IRONCLAD, ROLLING THUNDER and FAINTHEART; Fight Coordinator on GULLIVER'S TRAVELS and SHERLOCK HOLMES, Swordmaster on THE EAGLE and SOLOMON KANE
Other film work includes Fight Coordinator on THE DARK KNIGHT (winner SAG Best Stunt Ensemble & Taurus Stunt Award Best Fight) as well as THE GOLDEN COMPASS. Swordmaster on DRONA and THE LAST LEGION (nominated for Taurus Stunt Award). Perhaps his best-known film work is TROY, for which his Achilles vs. Hector fight was nominated for Best Fight in both Taurus World Stunt Award & MTV Film Awards.
'Master-at-Arms' to The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he has accumulated over 300 stage credits and has worked for many major companies such as The Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre of Ireland, Royal National Theatre, Cheek by Jowl, English National Opera, Royal Opera House, York Theatre Royal and Mercury Theatre, Colchester along with various West End shows and National Tours
Geoffrey Kent is a fight director, actor, stage combat teacher and director based out of Denver, Colorado. Geoffrey is currently the President of the Society of American Fight Directors, the largest organization of stage combatants in the world. He is the resident fight director for the Denver Center Theatre Company and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and the stage combat instructor for the National Theatre Conservatory and the University of Denver. When not staging violence, Geoffrey works as an actor and director along the front range.
DC has been teaching, performing, and directing violence since 1994. He is the Co-coordinator of the Central Illinois Stage Combat Workshop, as well as the Coordinator in charge of the Teaching Assistants for the Winter Wonderland Workshop. DC is very active in teaching at national, regional, and local stage combat workshops including the National Stage Combat Workshop, Central Illinois Stage Combat Workshop, Winter Wonderland Workshop, March Madness, and Carnage in the Corn with the SAFD, and still manages to find time to also teach at the Winter Stage Combat Workshop, Teachers Symposium, and even the Schwords and Schooner's Maritime Stage Combat workshop with Dueling Arts International.
D.C's work as a Fight Director has been viewed at numerous venues around the country including: the Off Broadway production of The Blowin of Baile Gall at the Donaghy Theatre at the Irish Arts Center; Titus Andronicus, Taming of the Shrew, Complt Wrks of Willm. Shakespeare Abgd., Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and Henry VIII at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival; Hamlet, Les Miserables, Moonlight and Magnolias, Of Mice and Men and Romeo and Juliet for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. Additionally his work has been seen at the Boston Playwrights Theater, Boston Musica Viva, Boston University Theater, Boston University Opera Institute, Tuachan, Actors Repertory Theater Ensemble, Brigham Young University, University of Kansas, University of Utah and Western Illinois University.
In addition, in conjunction with Dueling Arts International, D.C, wrote, directed and/or performed in three Wild West Stunt Shows for Leo Foo amusement park in Taiwan and he has also acted in and/or been the stunt coordinator/fight director for several commercials and industrial films. Most notable is the recently released DAI production called And They Fight, a 23 hr. six volume stage combat instructional series covering all major weapon styles in which he is a primary demonstrator.
DC is a Senior Instructor with Dueling Arts International, and is currently the Head of Movement and Stage Combat at Western Illinois University. DC is also currently serving on the Society of American Fight Director's Governing Body as the Certified Teacher Representative.
Mike Speck is an Advanced Actor Combatant based in Minnesota. He was the Mid-America Regional Representative for the SAFD from 2007 to early 2010, and now serves as the Friend/Actor Combatant/Advanced Actor Combatant rep on the SAFD's Governing Body. He co-founded (and still co-coordinates) the Carnage in the Corn regional workshop at Drake University in Des Moines.
Past choreography credits include Jekyll & Hyde, Cabaret, and Grease for the Armory Dinner Theatre; Playhouse Creatures and The Long Christmas Ride Home for Saint Mary's University of Minnesota; and Henry IV pt 2 in a workshop production for the Lincoln Amphitheatre. Mike has an MFA from Western Illinois University and a BA from Luther College, and is currently pursuing degrees in Arts & Cultural Management and in Project Management at St. Mary's of Minnesota.