2025 Melee Staff
Administrative Assistant
Anne Rematt
Anne Rematt is a performer based in Pittsburgh, PA with a growing focus in Stage Combat and Intimacy Direction. As a Fight Director, she has worked with Washington & Jefferson College and Brawling Bard Theater. Anne has also had the opportunity be the Assistant Fight Director as well as Fight Swing for the Pittsburgh Opera. As a performer, they find themselves with a focus in Shakespeare and Interactive/Immersive theater. Some favorite roles include Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet (Pittsburgh Classic Players), Milady in The Three Musketeers (The Jester’s Guild), and The Sword Master in Quest (Big Storm Production Company). When not swinging weapons, Anne can be found indulging her love of reading, watching obscure documentaries, and meeting dogs.
Armorer
Katie Warner
Katie Warner is a performer, teaching artist, fight choreographer, and intimacy director based in the DC Metro Area. An Advanced Actor Combatant with the SAFD, she has spent her whole life training in numerous movement disciplines. She was nominated for a 2023 WATCH Award for Stage Combat Choreography.
Training: Duke Ellington School of the Arts, DC; Sarah Lawrence College, NY (BA, 2022); British American Drama Academy, Oxford (MCP ‘16, MIO ‘22).
Production Assistants
CJ Cameron
Celine Jones-Cameron "CJ" is an advance actor combatant with SAFD. She began her journey in 2015 and worked hard to gain all 8 weapons. She just began her career in fight choreography in 2023, and she has chorography over 10 shows, and will start making her way in the world of choreographing intimacy really soon.
Lucy Redmon Connell
Lucy is a multihyphenate theatre artist who is committed to furthering accessibility in the theatre. Specializing in Shakespeare, musical theatre, and coffee, Lucy aims to create inventive and safe spaces in every collaboration of which she is apart.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Lucy is now located in DC with her two cats, Popcorn and Pringles.
Matthew Crawford
Matthew Crawford is a local DMV 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 choreographer in several 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 is the adjunct theatre teacher for PGCPS' VPA program, a standardized patient, and is a teaching artist with Signature Theatre, Imagination stage, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, and Compass Rose Theater. As a Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast, he showcases nerdy creativity both on and off the stage.
Jessica Penacchio
Residing in Chicago, Jessica has a B.A in Theatre Performance from UNC Charlotte where she studied physical theatre, circus, and Shakespeare. After graduating, she moved to Chicago to complete the Actor’s Gymnasium Professional Circus Training Program and obtained a Certificate of Completion with a focus in partner acrobatics and a minor in juggling. She started her stage combat journey at the end of 2020 and is an Advanced Actor Combatant with the SAFD. For the past two+ years she has been assisting F.M. Chuck Coyl at the Actor's Gymnasium and Open Gate Movement Arts under C.T.'s Dave Gonzalez, Nicky Jasper, and Mikey Saubert. Jessica loves studying martial arts, stunt training, pretending to fight her friends, and doing makeup for film!
Logan Sapp
Logan Bret Sapp is a Fight/Movement Choreographer who shares his love of Theatre and Stage Combat all over the country! Hailing from Owensboro Kentucky, Logan is currently a 2nd year graduate student pursuing his Masters in Theatre at Louisiana Tech University. Past productions of his are Disney’s Newsies, Victor Gialanella’s Frankenstein, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Jr. From choreographing giant battles to educating students in the classroom, Logan continues to bring his love of the arts to the world! He thanks his loved ones for their continued love and support. S,D,B,L,K
Azad Taylor
Azad, a Columbia local, is an actor combatant certified in 5 weapons with his favorite being quarterstaff. He was the raffle winner at this year's LA SLAY workshop in Los Angeles after attending the Melee last year. Azad is finishing his associates degree at Howard Community College. At HCC, he has been a teacher's assistant for Jenny Male's Stage combat courses. He has fallen in love with fight choreography due to his background in a variety of martial arts and growing up watching Kung-Fu movies. He has been lead fight choreographer for two projects for Dunloggin Middle School, and is eager to choreograph more in the future!
Kara Turner
Kara Turner is a 2025 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellow for theatre and a Society of American Fight Directors intermediate actor combatant. As a teaching artist, she works with students in K-12 schools, higher education, and nonprofits, including The Life Stories Program at The Theatre Lab and the Metropolitan School of the Arts. Her fight direction has recently been seen at Nu Sass Productions and Washington College. Movement-based acting credits include: The Welders' the earth that is sufficient, Theatre Prometheus' (Anon)ymous, and Washington National Opera’s Il trovatore. She was a 2023 cohort member of the Sumer Sling Fight Choreographer’s Track and trains in aerial arts at Cap City Circus.