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.
Paul L. Coffey (he/him/his) Off-Broadway: Merrily We Roll Along and Into the Woods at Roundabout Theatre Co., Pericles and Twelfth Night at Classic Stage Co., Measure for Measure at The New Victory Theater, The Two Gentlemen of Verona at Theatre for a New Audience and Cymbeline at TFANA/Barrow Street Theatre (all with Fiasco Theater). Regional Theatre: Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Old Globe, McCarter Theatre Center, Long Wharf Theater, Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Trinity Repertory Co., Pig Iron Theatre Co. Berkshire Theatre Festival, Vineyard Playhouse, The Theater at Monmouth, Peterborough Players. Film: Late Night and The Jew of Malta. Television: Blue Bloods. Other Theatre: Into the Woods at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory. Additional Credits: Paul is a graduate of the Brown/Trinity MFA Acting Program, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and a company member of Fiasco Theater
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. He has directed workshops and staffed as an associate director on productions for such organizations as The Public Theatre, The Roundabout Theatre Company, The Folger, Shakespeare’s Globe, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Fiasco, and the National Black Theatre. Regional Theatre: Fiasco Theater's Bartleby at The Old Globe, Master Harold and the Boys at Schoolhouse Theatre (Winner - Broadwayworld Best Supporting Performer in a Play), Fiasco Theater's Measure for Measure at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, As You Like It at Arden Theatre Company. Off-Broadway: Fiasco's Pericles and Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Winning Side (World Premiere), Richard III and Macbeth at Epic Theatre Ensemble; Knives in Hens at 59E59 Theaters (NYT Critic's Pick); All God's Chillun' Got Wings at JACK. Broadway Directing Credits: Pirates! The Penzance Musical (assistant director). Other Directing Credits: Blues for an Alabama Sky at Seattle Rep (assistant director), Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Folger Theatre (associate director), Shakespeare: Call & Response at The Public Theatre (assistant director), Pass Over at Luna Stage Company. Film/TV Directing Credits: The Woods Maiden, Mac N Beth, The Mark (Best Narrative Short 2021 Atlanta Shortsfest), Ambition’s Debt (Best Narrative Feature at 2017 American Black Film Festival), The Assassin. Additional Credits: M.F.A. from University of Alabama. Devin is a 2026 semi-finalist for the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Center, a 2024 Drama League Directing Project Fellow, an alumni of the Roundabout Directing Group and Mercury Store Directing Technique, a 2022 NY Emmy Award nominee, and a recipient of the Paul Robeson Award-Honorable Mention at the 2018 Newark Black Film Festival.
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.
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.
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 (she/her) is a theater maker, educator, and Fiasco’s Community Engagement Manager. She is on the faculty of NYU’s Program in Educational Theatre (recipient of a Spring 2021 USG Departmental Teaching Award), Adelphi University’s Department of Theater, Fiasco Theater, and BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and is one of the co-editors of The Teaching Artist Journal for Taylor & Francis. Her teaching and research interests include collaborative rehearsal practices, professional development for theater teaching artists, and the facilitation of spaces for artistic learning that are resilient, rigorous, responsive, and relational. For Fiasco: Assistant Director, The Comedy of Errors, directed by Ben Steinfeld (Without a Net and Actors Theatre of Louisville) Associate Director, Fiasco Theater’s Pericles directed by Ben Steinfeld (Without a Net and Classic Stage Company) and developmental readings of The Verge directed by Jessie Austrian by Susan Glaspell. In other directing projects, Ashley has worked most recently with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Future Classics Series, NYU, Adelphi University, the Episcopal Actor’s Guild, and Andy’s Summer Playhouse. She holds an MFA in Acting from Brooklyn College and a BA from NYU Gallatin, and has trained with Anna Deavere Smith, Fiasco Theater, Nicole Brewer’s Conscientious Theatre Training, The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, artEquity, and RaceForward. Ashley is proud to call both Brooklyn, NY and Altadena, CA home.
Photo Credit: Bridget Badore