Coordinators

  • Ian Claar is a fight choreographer, intimacy choreographer, lighting designer, and teaching artist based in Northern Virginia. He has been actively involved in the performing arts community for the past 17 years throughout Virginia’s educational, community, regional theatres. He has studied the art of stage combat since 2013, and continues to train, choreograph and educate. In addition to being part of the Noble Blades leadership, he has a degree in Design and Technical Theatre from Christopher Newport University, is an Advanced Actor/Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors (and a 2024 Fight Director Workshop Candidate) and is a proud member of I.A.T.S.E., Local 22 and Associate Member of SDC.

  • Kaitlyn De Litta is excited to explore her passion for safety, stage combat, and stage weaponry with the Noble Blades, while bringing her experience as a props artisan and stage manager to the troupe. Raised as a Loudoun County local, Kaitlyn began her theatrical career with the theatre department at Woodgrove High School, but didn’t realize theatre was her passion until working on ‘The 39 Steps’ with Run Rabbit Run Theatre in 2013. It was then that she decided to pursue live entertainment as a career, and graduated in 2018 with a BFA in Theatre Design and Production with an emphasis in Stage Management from Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, Va. After graduation, Kaitlyn began working as the over-hire Props Runner at Signature Theatre, and has since accepted the position full time. Between shows at Signature, Kaitlyn has been able to work at multiple venues in the DC area, and has various production credits from Studio Theatre, Synetic Theatre, DC Capital Fringe Festival, Georgetown Preparatory School, and Adventure Theatre. She is also proud to be a new member of IATSE Local 22. Her debut with Reston Community Players came when she served as the Weapons Master on ‘The Game’s Afoot’ in February 2020. Kaitlyn hopes that her position on the board of directors lends unique perspective and experience to a noble and exciting mission.

  • Robb Hunter is a fight master and theatrical firearms instructor for the Society of American Fight Directors, as well as a long-time member of AEA, SAG/AFTRA and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Robb is also honored to serve on the Governing Body as fight director representative. Professionally, he is an award-winning movement and fight director and has choreographed violence/movement for many D.C. theatres including The Shakespeare Theatre, Arena Stage, Center Stage, Washington National Opera, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, The Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, The Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Rep Stage, and Washington Shakespeare Company, among others. Robb holds an MFA in theatre pedagogy from the Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently the combat instructor for the Shakespeare Theatre’s one-year intensive MFA program, the Academy for Classical Acting. He is also an artist in residence at American University where he choreographs, directs and has taught movement, mime, stage combat, acting and various sections of theatre history. In addition, he teaches stage combat for McDaniel College, the MFA program at Catholic University and he is a teaching artist for The Shakespeare Theatre and for the Acting Conservatory at The Studio Theatre. When he is not teaching or directing violence he is “enabling” it through his theatrical weapons rental company, Preferred Arms, Inc., which supplies swords, knives and assault rifles to theatres and universities nationwide (www.preferredarms.com). Before becoming a professional fight director, Robb was an actor in New York and was fortunate enough to have spent an amazing three years working with Michael J. Fox as his stand-in and stunt double and a season annoying Whoopi Goldberg with his horrible Persian accent.

  • Jenny Male is a Certified Teacher and Fight Director with the Society of American Fight Directors.  DC/Baltimore fight choreography credits include work at Ford’s Theatre, Studio Theatre, Arena Stage, Constellation Theatre Company, Rep Stage, Olney Theatre, Washington Stage Guild, Everyman Theatre, Factory 449, Adventure Theatre, Imagination Stage, Maryland Opera Studio, and Baltimore Shakespeare Festival. Professional directing credits include Tecumseh!, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Scioto Society), My Fair Lady, As You Like It (Ozark Actors Theatre), Evil Dead, Into The Woods, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Red Branch Theatre Company), Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, Peter Pan (Children’s Theatre of Charlotte), The World Goes ‘Round (Maryland Ensemble Theatre), and How I Became a Pirate (Adventure Theatre).  In 2002, Jenny earned her MFA in Theatre Pedagogy with an emphasis in Movement & Fight Direction from Virginia Commonwealth University.  In 2018, she received the SAFD President’s Award and was elected to serve as the Certified Teacher representative for the SAFD Governing Body 2019-2021.  Jenny taught at the National Stage Combat Workshop in 2022 (Sword & Shield) and 2023 (Staff) and has taught at several SAFD regional workshops including the Summer Sling, Philadelphia Stage Combat Workshop, Tourist Trap, Carnage in the Corn, the MAC, Virginia Beach Bash, and the Mid-Atlantic Melee.  Jenny is Associate Professor of Theatre at Howard Community College where she teaches Voice, Dialects, Movement, Acting Shakespeare, and Stage Combat.  Her directing credits at HCC include Eurydice, Twelfth Night, Spring Awakening, Puffs, The Lightning Thief, Urinetown, Much Ado About Nothing, and two shows that were invited to perform at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for Region 2:  Medea and Argonautika. 

  • Jonathan Ezra Rubin is a Certified Teacher with the SAFD and freelances as a Fight & Intimacy Director throughout the Washington, DC-Metro Area, currently hosting classes and choreographing under his company, Fire & Ice Movement Arts. He is also a licensed professional wrestler in the State of Maryland. Additionally, he is the SAFD’s current Treasurer and Development Department Co-Chair. 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 has choreographed most of Flying V's shows, as well as fights and/or intimacy at The Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, Mosaic Theater Company, GALA Hispanic Theatre, Adventure Theatre-MTC, 4615 Theatre Company, Silver Spring Stage, Lumina Studio Theatre, Georgetown University, Goucher College, and many more. He is a proud Associate Member of The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a national professional theatrical union. In addition to studying stage combat with the SAFD and other instructors since 2011, he has been studying intimacy direction since 2015 under the tutelage of some of the industry's founders and most influential names, continuing that training and legacy of work to this day. Jonathan also has over a decade of executive-level nonprofit arts administration experience and works full-time as the Managing Director of the Theatre Consortium of Silver Spring. He also serves on the Advisory Board for Flying V, where he had previously been the Managing Director and then Associate Artistic Director, as well as had run and been the lead teacher for the Flying V Fights: Combat Gym from 2018-2020, a bi-weekly, drop-in stage combat class. Jonathan is also the Co-Coordinator of the Summer Sling's Fight Choreographer Track. Jonathan is the Head of Administration and an Accredited Intimacy Director with Intimacy Professionals Education Collective (IPEC).