John Stead
20th season: Head of Stage Combat for the Stratford Festival. Fight director of Romeo and Juliet, Fiddler on the Roof, Measure for Measure, Mary Stuart, The Three Musketeers, Waiting for Godot, Othello and The Merchant of Venice and stunt coordinator of Blithe Spirit. Elsewhere: Mr. Stead has over 450 professional production credits as a fight director. He has worked across Canada and the U.S. with numerous companies including the Shaw Festival for 14 seasons, Soulpepper Theatre, Canadian Stage, the National Ballet, Mirvish Productions, Tarragon Theatre, Manitoba Theatre Centre, the National Arts Centre, Studio Arena Theatre, the Geva Theatre in Rochester, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre and the Lincoln Center on Broadway. Film/TV: He has performed stunts on numerous productions and stunt-coordinated the action sequences for more than 100 film and television productions in Canada and abroad. He has also directed for several television series, including Lost Girl, End Game, The Hot Flash, XIII, The Dresden Files, Mutant X, Tracker, Earth: Final Conflict and The Adventures of Sinbad. He directed the feature films Good Morning Tomorrow (Southern Ice Films), Troubled Waters (Genius Productions/Peace Arch Entertainment), Cyborg Soldier (Nu Image/Peace Arch Entertainment), The Waking (Boomerang Films) and Charon’s Obol (Right Side Up Productions). Teaching: Mr. Stead has taught at the universities of Toronto, Waterloo and Saskatchewan, Humber College and Wilfrid Laurier University. Awards: He has been awarded an Award of Excellence (Canadian International Film Festival – The Waking), a Genre Award for Best Suspense (BNFF – The Waking), the Derek F. Mitchell Artistic Director’s Award and a Tyrone Guthrie Award (Stratford Festival), the Judges’ Choice Award (15 Minutes of Fame International Film Festival – The Waking) and Best Short First Runner-Up (Ticket to Hollywood International Film and Screenplay Festival) and nominated for a Best Short Award (Directors Guild of Canada). Et cetera: Mr. Stead is a master instructor with the Academy of Dramatic Combat and a member of the Society of Canadian Fight Directors.