Theatre
Fight Director
Anita has been a fight director for theatrical events and productions including the Stratford Festival, the Blythe Festival, Carousel Players, the Centaur Theatre, the Segal Theatre for the Performing Arts, the Charlottetown Festival, Soulpepper Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Neptune Theatre, and Shakespeare in the Park.
Anita served as associate fight director for the Canadian Opera Company on the productions of Don Quichotte, Die Walkure and Carmen.
She has also been a fight director for puppet shows, including Artichoke Heart Collective’s production of We Walk Among You.
–Qasim Khan, performing as Hamlet for Shakespeare in High Park, 2024
Stage Combat Instructor
Anita taught stage combat at the National Theatre School from 2014 to 2024. She also teaches stage combat workshops at high schools, art schools, drama festivals (DramaFest, Shakespearience), and at the Stratford Conservatory.
Intimacy Coordinator
Anita has worked as an intimacy coordinator on productions including Our Place for Cahoots/Theatre Passe Muraille, Trojan Girls and the Outhouse of Atreus for Outside the March and Factory Theatre, Maggie for Theatre Aquarius, and Fall on Your Knees for Canadian Stage. Learn more »
Anita’s Theatre Bio
Selected Fight Director and Sexual Choreographer credits include:
- Art of War, Stratford Festival 2025
- Forgiveness, Stratford Festival 2025
- Ransacking Troy, Stratford Festival 2025
- Dangerous Liasons, Stratford Festival 2025
- Anne of Green Gables, Stratford Festival 2025
- Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Stratford Festival 2025
- The Winter’s Tale, Stratford Festival 2025
- Macbeth, Stratford Festival 2025
- Annie, Stratford Festival 2025
- As You Like It, Stratford Festival 2025
- Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), Perchance Theatre 2025
- Powers & Gloria, Blyth Festival 2025
- The Secret to Good Tea, The Grand Theatre 2024
- Groundhog Day, YES Theatre 2024
- Salesman in China, National Arts Centre 2024
- Wights, Crow’s Theatre 2024
- Sound of Music, The Grand Theatre 2024
- CRAZE, Tarragon Theatre 2024
- As You Like It, The Grand Theatre 2024
- The Bidding War, Crow’s Theatre 2024
- Roberto Zucco, Buddies in Bad Times 2024
- Midsummer Night’s Dream, Perchance Theatre 2024
- Fat Ham, Canadian Stage 2024
- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Canadian Stage 2024
- Hamlet, Canadian Stage 2024
- London Assurance, Stratford Festival 2024
- Salesman in China, Stratford Festival 2024
- Get That Hope, Stratford Festival 2024
- The Goat, Stratford Festival 2024
- La Cage aux Folles, Stratford Festival 2024
- Twelfth Night, Stratford Festival 2024
- Hedda Gabler, Stratford Festival 2024
- Something Rotten, Stratford Festival 2024
- Romeo & Juliet, Stratford Festival 2024
- Cymbeline, Stratford Festival 2024
- Wendy & Peter, Stratford Festival 2024
- The Diviners, Stratford Festival 2024
- Three Sisters, Soulpepper Theatre Company 2023
- Truth, Young People’s Theatre 2023
- Angels in America, Buddies in Bad Times 2023
- Mr. Burns, Sheridan College 2023
- Jesus Christ Superstar, Talk is Free Theatre 2023
- The Retreat, Imago Theatre 2023
- Bad Roads, Crow’s Theatre 2023
- Hamlet, The Rose 2023
- WildWoman, Soulpepper Theatre Company 2023
- Phantom of the Opera, The Grand Theatre 2023
- Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, TIP 2023
- Otíhêw, Shakespeare in Action 2023
- Midsummer Night’s Dream, Canadian Stage 2023
- Tribes!, Segal Centre 2023
- Kelly vs. Kelly, Canadian Stage 2023
- Maggie, Theatre Aquarius 2023
- Fairview, Canadian Stage 2023
- Counter Offence, Segal Centre 2023
- Prodigal, Crow’s Theatre 2023
- Ce Monde-là, YouTheatre 2022
- Fall on Your Knees, CanStage/Neptune/NAC/Grand 2022/2023
- As You Like It, Canadian Stage 2022
- Trojan Girls and the Outhouse of Atreus, Factory Theatre 2022
- Our Place, Theatre Passe Muraille 2022
- Public Enemy, Canadian Stage 2022
- Caroline, or Change, Obsidian and Musical Stage Company 2020
- Fences, The Grand Theatre 2019
- Virgin Trial, Soulpepper Theatre Company 2018
- Mustard, Tarragon Theatre 2018
- Jerusalem, Crow’s Theatre 2018
- Whole World, Carousel Players 2018
- 39 Steps, Centaur Theatre 2017
- The Last Wife, Centaur Theatre 2017
- Successions, Centaur Theatre 2017
- Dink, Theatre-a-go-go 2015
- Stag and Doe, Blyth Festival 2014
- Kitchen Radio, Blyth Festival 2014
- Paradise by the River, Shadowpath Theatre Productions 2010
- Blood, Doghouse Riley Productions 2010
Selected Stunt Performer/Stunt Actor credits:
- Slasher
- Twisted Metal Season 2
- Law & Order: Toronto
- SEE
- Star Trek: Discovery
- Pretty Hard Cases
- Titans
- The Boys
- Rabbit Hole
- What We Do in the Shadows
- various Ubisoft motion capture productions
Upcoming Theatre Projects:
- Stratford Festival 2026 Season
- Slave Play (CanStage)
- Robin Hood (CanStage)
Upcoming Film/TV Projects:
- Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (Season 2)
The Bidding War, Crow's Theatre
Lori Bosworth, Torontonicity
(November 24, 2024)
Romeo and Juliet, Stratford Festival
Joshua Chong, Toronto Star
(June 5, 2024)
Bad Roads, Crow's Theatre
“The violence is handled more or less tastefully (though your mileage may certainly vary) by fight and intimacy director Anita Nittoly, evoking unsettling imagery without ever having the actors touch – a worthwhile payoff to a staging convention used throughout the entire production, established under far less dire circumstances.”
Ryan Borochovitz, Intermission Magazine (November 12, 2023)
WildWoman, Soulpepper Theatre
“It’s a very physical play with a lot of fighting and fucking. Anita Nittoly, the Fight and Intimacy Director, earns her fee ten times over.”
Opera Ramblings (October 10, 2023)
WildWoman, Soulpepper Theatre
“What stands out to me the most thematically are the power and sexual dynamics in every single relationship on the stage. The intimacy direction by Anita Nittoly is incredibly thoughtful and story-driven, simple yet effective at telling the story of different kinds of sex.”
Andrea Perez, Intermission Magazine
(October 16, 2023)
Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, Thousand Islands Playhouse
“One is keenly aware of the work of Anita Nittoly, the intimacy director. How each character touches the other is beautifully established…”
Lynn Slotkin, The Slotkin Letter (September 29, 2023)
Fall on Your Knees, Neptune Theatre
“The violence portrayed onstage, with fight choreography by Anita Nittoly, is unflinching and tough to watch. I heard many people in the audience viscerally responding to the play’s most intense scenes. In reality, these moments are hidden within the walls of a home, but we are being asked as audience members to acknowledge it out in the light and not to allow it to simply fade from our collective consciousness.”
Amanda Campbell, TWISI theatre blog
(February 13, 2023)
Fall on Your Knees, The Bluma Theatre
“Under Anita Nittoly’s direction, the stage violence is convincingly handled, but almost to a fault: it is gut-wrenching to watch and hear episodes of domestic battery over and over again as they’re replayed in the characters’ memories, and this could be triggering to those particularly sensitive to such material.”
Karen Fricker, The Toronto Star
(January 28, 2023)
The Rez Sisters, The Stratford Festival
“Scenes begin to break down into raucous battles as various tensions are exposed and fight director Anita Nittoly’s remarkable choreography mirrors the many conflicts…”
Dave Rabjohn, Onstage Blog
(August 20, 2021)
Fences, The Grand Theatre
“The fight scene involving Williams (father/Troy) and Nabea (son/Cory) using the baseball bat was heart-stopping. It was so well choreographed that the audience gasped with each shove and swing of the bat, to the credit of fight director Anita Nittoly.”
Mary Alderson, Entertain This Thought
(March 3, 2019)
Blood
“The play has a lot of physicality. Fight Director Anita Nittoly has done an impressive job. The confrontations are absorbing. The chemistry between Duarte and Chambers is obvious and believable.”
George Perry, Mooney on Theatre
(October 2, 2010)
