Operational Staff
Artistic Director | EmmaClaire Brightlyn
Originally from Canada, EmmaClaire Brightlyn is an actress, fight director and instructor based in Toronto, Canada and Glasgow, Scotland. With an MA in Classical and Contemporary Text (Acting) from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, EmmaClaire has taught physical theatre and stage combat for The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Edinburgh College, the National Festival of Youth Theatre, and The University of Lethbridge in Canada, where she was also invited as a Guest Artist. In 2011, EmmaClaire was hired as one of the Fight Captains and as a Featured Gladiator in Ben Hur Live! (New Arts Concerts, Germany) which ran in Rome, Italy before heading to Germany. During this 180 cast member production, she was involved in choreographing and running some of the shows most exciting moments including the epic sea battle between the Romans and pirates, and Ben Hur’s victorious fight against the gladiators. In 2019, EmmaClaire’s theatrical fight direction was seen internationally in the Award winning production of Ulster American, which won the Carol Tambor Prize at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year before touring to Adelaide, Auckland, Dublin and Belfast before heading to New York City next year. Most recently Emma Claire was Fight Arranger on Scottish feature films Anna and the Apocalypse (Blazing Griffin) and Beats (Sixteen Films). She is currently the Artistic Associate at Solar Stage Theatre, and was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance in The Ugly Duckthing, Marty Stelnik’s wacky adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen classic. She has been a company member with Ipdip Theatre in Scotland, creating engaging work for under 4 year olds and the big people who come with them, an actor and fight director in multiple seasons of Bard in the Botanics, Scotland’s longest running Shakespeare company, and as an actor with Playwright’s Studio Scotland, workshopping new pieces of theatre. EmmaClaire also works as a Director and Dramaturg, and is the Artistic Director of the International Order of the Sword and Pen.
Executive Director | Daniel Ford Beavis
Daniel has been a professional stunt performer since 1996. Over the years Daniel has worked on dozens of productions, from stage to television to film. His credits include dodging flaming reindeer in Just Friends, getting tackled through glass over a cliff in Android Apocalypse, and coordinated episodes of the Canadian series, Rabbit Fall, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Moccasin Flat, Renegadepress.com and Insecurity. Stunts has been a passion of Daniel for many years, but his true calling is teaching. He has taught at the University of Saskatchewan, The Banff Centre, the International Stunt School as well as a variety of workshops in Montreal, Los Angeles, Atlanta among others. Daniel has literally lit hundreds of stunt performers on fire, made students do thousands of high falls, helped administer untold numbers of face punches and groin kicks, engineered numerous stabs with knives and swords, and kept every one of them safe as they did it. Daniel has recently coordinated the upcoming movies: a psychological thriller Chained, a zombie movie 13 Eerie, an action thriller Ferocious, and a vampire movie called Rufus. Check online for his work on the werewolf series, “Lupine Life.”
Social Media Manager| Bryce Bermingham
Bryce was a ranked tournament free style martial artist growing up and combined that passion with dramatic art to stimulate a long career in film and theatre. While acquiring a BFA and MFA in musical theatre Bryce found time to attend stage combat workshops and even teach and train in the UK, spending 6 months based out of the Welsh College of Music and Drama. Bryce became a fight director with Fight Directors, Canada in 1998 and has since fought and danced his way around North America and the UK. As an actor he toured with the Broadway National Tour of Cats, has performed in 6 companies of Beauty and the Beast and was part of the original workshop production of Snow White for Disney Entertainment in California. As a fight director he has choreographed the violence for musicals such as a national tour of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Beauty and the Beast, and George Stiles The Three Musketeers and well as dozens of Shakespeare and modern theatre works. Bryce recently was the stunt coordinator for The House that Jack Built which premiered at the LA Film Festival, an HBO airing and recently at the Queens International Film Festival winning Audience Favorite and Best Director honors. He can also be seen on 6 book covers as a well-armed assassin of the David Dalglish’s Shadowdance series. Bryce began working with the Paddy Crean workshop in 2000 and has been a workshop coordinator and instructor since 2003. See his website: www.ludio.com.