Laura Kepley
Former Artistic Director of Cleveland Playhouse
Director of Three Musketeers
Rod Kinter is an outstanding collaborator. Rod contributed to every aspect of our production of The Three Musketeers, from conceptualization, to casting, to design, and throughout the rehearsal process and run. The world we built together exceeded all of my expectations. The play called for 10 fight scenes. He made each unique, dynamic, and thrilling. He customized the choreography to highlight and showcase the actors’ skills and abilities. Everyone onstage and backstage felt safe, in control, and like superheroes.
Katy Brown
Artistic Director of Barther Theatre &
Director of Three Musketeers
Rod Kinter's fight direction encompasses the whole actor— he focuses not just on making the choreography look stunning (it does) but also on the story that each fight is telling and the true motivations inside each moment of the fight. The result is work that is deeply collaborative, rooted in the full story of the play, and that truly engages each actor in a way that pays incredible dividends for the production. His flexibility, imagination, and skill helped everyone associated with The Three Musketeers do the best work possible and has our audiences leaping to their feet.
Catherine Bush
Barter Theatre Resident Playwright
When Rick Rose, Barter Theatre's Producing Artistic Director, commissioned me to adapt THE THREE MUSKETEERS, he said "We need fights, Catherine - don't skimp on the fights." So I wrote in fights - lots and LOTS of fights. And though Barter's Resident Acting Company is awesome, not many had professional fight training. Then Rod Kinter arrived, and after 5 seconds we knew this show was going to SOAR! Rod's fight direction added everything THE THREE MUSKETEERS required - danger, excitement, irony, and much-needed humor. His fights were thrilling; they left our audiences gasping. We were lucky to have Rod, and I would recommend his work to everyone.
Claire Shannon Kelly
Artistic Director – Shakespeare on the Sound
"Rod Kinter is an outstanding Fight Director. His choreography is innovative, dynamic, and tells not only the physical story of the fight, but infuses each movement with the emotion of the moment."
Russell Treyz
Director – Moonlight and Magnolias, Utah Shakespearean Festival
"Rod was a wonderful fight choreographer and co-creator. He has specific, well thought out and planned ideas, but remained flexible in working out new ideas as they came along. I would highly recommend him."
Tim Haskell
Director; Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy,
The Jaded Assassin, Last Life.
"As a director, I had worked with multiple fight choreographers before finding Rod, always leaving me creatively unsatisfied. He was the first Fight Director that actually treated it like choreography and not just teaching the actors how to punch and kick on stage in the way I told him to. It was so unexpected when he came in to our first rehearsal with a whole scene mapped out complete with a story arc and full of imagination. And it was all better than what I had come up with! As long as he will have me, I will never work with another choreographer"
Kelley McKinnon
Director at American Globe Theatre
"Rod Kinter is the best fight director I have ever worked with/seen. Also a nice guy who is great with actors. Either can work from scratch or has an uncanny ability to create anything
I ask for. And SUPER efficient, and flashy as hell too."
J.R. Sullivan
Former Artistic Director of the Pearl Theatre Company NYC
Former Artistic Director of the Utah Shakespeare Festival
"Rod Kinter is a Fight Director of exceptional craft. I have shared several major productions with Rod and each of them mightily benefitted from his skills as a fight choreographer as well as a dynamic story-teller. He is first-rate and any production is lucky indeed to have him on its team."
Davis McCallum
Artistic Director, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival
"I loved working with Rod on HENRY IV, PART ONE at the Pearl. All of the drama of that play culminates in an on-stage battle in Act V, and thanks to Rod's impeccable fight choreography, ours did not disappoint. Rod is a graceful and thorough collaborator, always prepared for every meeting, and able to adapt quickly to new ideas. He's very good with actors, and efficient in the rehearsal room. In performance, Rod's fights were visually thrilling, stylistically appropriate, full of character detail and storytelling clarity, and safe. I highly recommend him."
Stephen Brackett
Tony nominated director of A Strange Loop
Director of The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical
The Lightning Thief contains about a million fights, varying from sword combat to battling furies inside of a Greyhound bus, and they have to capture the tone of the books which is playful, truthful, and completely bad ass. Rod dove into the material with rigor and wit, leading an ensemble through a crash course in stage combat techniques, and creating layered, complex and thrilling fight sequences. He's an amazing collaborator, with a great depth of knowledge and teaching skill.
Rachel Klein
Director, Red Roses, Green Gold., More than all the World, Tink!, The Anthem and Coming, A Rock Musical of Biblical Proportions
"Rod Kinter is one of NYC's foremost fight directors. He has the experience and the versatility to create both poignant and brutal pieces of fight direction, as well as light-hearted, comedic stagings. I've collaborated with him on several occasions, and particularly appreciate his ability to tailor the fight sequences around the actors and their strengths, as well as the specific vision of the production."
Cynthia Edwards
Stage Director at New York City Opera
"Rod Kinter is a superb fight director. I worked with him for a number of years at New York City Opera, most often in Carmen. He is skilled in conveying fight choreography to actors in way that is easy to absorb and very safe. He is creative and flexible, adapting quickly to differing skill levels and new ideas from the stage director. I’ve seen him work with all manner of swords, knives, guns, longstaffs and plain fisticuffs, all to great effect. I am very happy to recommend him."
Rhoda Levine
Opera Director, NYCO and Glimmerglass
"I worked with Mr. Kinter as a fight choreographer at New York City Opera and Glimmerglass Opera. He is an amazingly gifted man and a wonderful colleague to work with. He also taught some stage combat classes for me at Manhattan School of Music where I am on the faculty. The students loved working with him. I am a great fan."
