Fiasco Teachers

Jessie Austrian is a theater-maker, educator, activist and parent. She is one of Fiasco Theater’s Co-Artistic Directors and founders. For Fiasco: Imogen, Cymbeline, Baker’s Wife, Into the Woods, Escalus/Marianna, Measure for Measure, Julia/co-director, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Balene/co-director, Imaginary Invalid, Olivia, Twelfth Night, Mary, Merrily We Roll Along; Broadway: The Importance of Being Earnest, Lend Me a Tenor; Off-Broadway: The Marriage of Bette and Boo; Regional: The Guthrie, Actors Theater of Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse, Trinity Repertory Company, Virginia Stage Company, Folger Theater, McCarter Theater, Old Globe. As a director: NYU and Playmaker’s Rep. TV/Film: Mistress America, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Made in Jersey. Adjunct faculty at NYU Gallatin School. Favorite roles: partner to Noah and mom to Asher and Tabitha.

Noah Brody is an actor, director, teacher and writer. He is a founder co-artistic director of Fiasco Theater. And he spends lots of time with Excel spreadsheets. Directing for Fiasco: Merrily We Roll Along and co-director of The Imaginary Invalid, Twelfth Night, Into the Woods, Measure for Measureand Cymbeline. Acting for Fiasco: The Imaginary Invalid, Mr. Diafoirus; Twelfth Night, Orsino; Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus; Into the Woods, Cinderella’s Prince/Wolf/ Lucinda; Cymbeline, Posthumous. Broadway: nope. Off-Broadway: As You Like It, Classic Stage Company. Regional: Bay Street Theater, Old Globe, Folger Theater, McCarter Theater, Trinity Repertory Company. As a director: Actors Theater of Louisville, Wolfe Street Playhouse and the national tour of Fiasco’s Into the Woods. TV/Film: You know those credits that are so old you stop wanting to list them? That’s about the size of it. Nothing in life brings as much joy as being married to Jessie and being dad to Asher and Tabitha. 

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Zachary Fine is an actor, writer, director, and teacher. Broadway credits include China Doll with Al Pacino. Off-Broadway credits include The Acting Company, The Mint Theater, Pearl, Red Bull, Fiasco, Theater For A New Audience, New York Classical Theater. Regional: Guthrie, Folger (Helen Hayes Award Winner), Playmakers, and many more. Directing: Spanish language premiere of El Bien Del Pais (Our Country’s Good) at Teatro Helenico, Mexico City; Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival; Key West Theater; Thin Air Shakespeare Festival, Tony nominee Bryce Pinkham’s Between The Moon and Me at Birdland. TV/Film: Person of Interest, BlackBox, One Life to Live. Writing has been supported by the Lark, EAT Festival’s One Man Talking, Space on Ryder Farm, IRT, The Acting Company, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival and Playmakers Rep. Apprenticed with Christopher Bayes and trained at Ecole du Phillipe Gaulier, The Circus Center in San Francisco, Spymonkey w/Aitor Basauri and received an MFA from the University of Tennessee and B.A. (Summa Cum Laude) Oberlin College. He teaches clown and games at NYU and holds workshops around the world.


Kristin Fulton is an Actor, Writer, Producer and Voice and Speech Instructor based in NYC. She currently teaches in the theater department at The City College of New York. Kristin has and continues to train in a variety of voice methods including, Knight Thompson Speech and Chuck Jones voice work. In 2018, Kristin launched Kapital K productions, which now focus on amplifying the voices of Black women in front and behind the scenes. Kristin holds an MFA in Acting from Brooklyn College.


Devin E. Haqq is a Brooklyn based theatre artist, arts educator, and award-winning filmmaker. He has performed both Off-Broadway and regionally and his films have screened at numerous film festivals around the world. Regional Theatre: Fiasco Theater's Measure for Measure at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, As You Like It at Arden Theatre Company. Off-Broadway: The Winning Side (World Premiere), Richard III and Macbeth at Epic Theatre Ensemble; Knives in Hens at 59E59 Theaters (NYT Critic's Pick); Much Ado About Nothing at NYSX; All God's Chillun' Got Wings at JACK. Directing Credits: Shakespeare: Call & Response at The Public Theatre (assistant director), Pass Over at Luna Stage Company, The Mark (Best Narrative Feature 2021 Atlanta Shortsfest, Nominated for Best Horror at 2020 LA Shorts International Film Festival), Ambition’s Debt (Best Narrative Feature at 2017 American Black Film Festival),The Assassin. Additional Credits: M.F.A. from University of Alabama. Haqq is a recipient of the Paul Robeson Award-Honorable Mention at the 2018 Newark Black Film Festival. He was nominated for Best Director at the 2017 American Black Film Festival and the 2018 Winter Film Awards.


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Liz Hayes is an actor, teaching artist and voice, dialect and text coach. She is currently the Head of Voice & Speech for the MFA Acting Program at Columbia University and has taught Voice & Speech in the MFA program at Brooklyn College, NYU/Tisch's New Studio on Broadway, Pace University, Syracuse's Tepper Semester, The Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Emerson College. Liz has vocal and dialect coached on and Off-Broadway and for numerous theater companies including Playwrights Horizons, the Roundabout Theatre Co., Second Stage Theater, McCarter Theatre Center, Huntington Theatre Co., Audible Theater/Audible.com and also coaches 4th Year productions at the Juilliard School. As an actor, Liz's credits include in Into the Woods with Fiasco Theater and the New England premiere of George Brandt's Grounded. She has appeared onstage with many Regional and Boston-based companies and was a founding artist of the Elliot Norton Award-winning theater company Orfeo Group. Liz is a member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, VASTA and The Actors Center.


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Navarra Novy-Williams is a New York City-based dance artist and educator. Professional dance experience includes Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, the Batsheva Ensemble, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Ballet of Difference, and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. She has also collaborated on original multi-disciplinary creations with the Arias Company, zoe|juniper, and Mark DeChiazza, and on the award-winning short film The First Date, by Mary John Frank. In 2019 she performed in Romeo Castellucci’s Democracy in America. Navarra has presented her own work at the United Palace, the Danza Highbridge Festival, The Asbury Park Dance Festival, the New School, the New York Quarantine Film Festival, and STUFFED at Judson Church. She is currently co-producing a VR/360Video site-specific dance project called While You Wait... with video artist and composer Carlos Johns-Dávila. Navarra teaches Gaga, ballet, and movement improvisation across the United States, including at the Juilliard School, NYU, SUNY Purchase, Movement Invention Project, MOVE|NYC|, Fiasco, New Dialect, The Performing Arts Project, SU-CASA, and Dances for A Variable Population. She graduated from the Juilliard School with a BFA in Dance in 2006 and holds a MA in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship from the New School.

Photo by Folahan Aiyedun


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Annie Piper teaches at Kula Yoga in Tribeca, The Shala and Prema Yoga in Brooklyn.  She is on the movement faculty at NYU's Tisch School of Graduate Acting and The Yale School of Drama. She is the co- teacher of ‘The Open Voice' with Jessie Austrian at NYU's Gallatin School.  She is certified to teach trauma-sensitive yoga by both the Trauma Center in Boston and with the national organization Warriors at Ease, and continues to bring yoga to veterans throughout the New York area. She has served on the faculty at the Brown University / Trinity Rep Consortium as well as undergraduate Theater Studies at NYU. Formerly an actor and director, she received an MFA in Acting from The University of Minnesota and a BA in Theater from Oberlin College. She certified to teach in 1997 at OM yoga, and studies Qi Gong with Thomas Droge.  She is also a Reiki practitioner and the mother of two beautiful and feisty boys in Brooklyn, New York.

Ben Steinfeld is an actor, director, teacher, writer, and musician. He is one of Fiasco Theater’s Co-Artistic Directors and founders. For Fiasco: Iachimo/Arviragus/Co-director, Cymbeline; Baker/Co-director, Into the Woods; Lucio/Froth/Co-director, Measure for Measure; Co-director, Two Gentlemen of Verona; Composer and Music Director, Imaginary Invalid: Feste/Co-director, Twelfth Night; Frank, Merrily We Roll Along. Broadway: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Cyrano de Bergerac. Off-Broadway: One Thousand Nights and One Day, Bloody Bloody... Regional: Westport, Williamstown, Trinity Rep, McCarter, Old Globe, CTG. As a director: Into the Woods national tour, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Folger Theatre. TV/Film: Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight, The Deuce, The Good Wife, Law & Order: Crimimal Intent. Adjunct professor and Artistic Associate at NYU's Gallatin School (recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award). Ben lives near a lovely canal in New Jersey with his wife, Kate, and son, Leo.

Ashley Renee Thaxton-Stevenson is an actor, director, dramaturg, and educator. Currently, she is the Senior Manager of Education Programs at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Adjunct Faculty at NYU’s Program in Educational Theatre and a Core Acting Ensemble member of the Verbatim Performance Lab. Her work is focused on antiracist actor training, collaborative rehearsal practices, and contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare. Ashley has trained with Anna Deavere Smith, Fiasco, Nicole Brewer’s Conscientious Theatre Training, The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, artEquity, and RaceForward. MFA: Brooklyn College www.art-s.co 

Photo Credit: Bridget Badore