Rachel Flesher

Teaching Artist

Intimacy Director (Live Performance)

Intimacy Coordinator (TV/Film)

Location: Chicago, IL/ Los Angeles, CA

Contact: rachel.flesher@me.com

Rachel (they/she/he) is an Intimacy Director, Intimacy Coordinator, Violence Director, Movement Specialist,  blood and gore designer, SAG-AFTRA stunt performer, a teaching artist, an actor, writer, and director. Her acting, fight choreography, and movement training guided her to try to find a better way to choreograph and help facilitate scenes with sexual, intimate, and highly suggestive content. Through studying mental health first aid, trauma, and abuse, and collaborating with other directors, psychologists, and mental health experts, she is developing techniques to help actors safely portray trauma and abuse (Traumaturgy) on stage and screen. 

Rachel is an Instructor with the Fight Directors Canada, an Instructor with Tactics on Set, an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago and DePaul University. She has had the pleasure of traveling the world to teach workshops on consent, stage and screen combat, simulated domestic violence, and intimacy, for actors, directors, stage managers, and educators. She also specializes in consent and combat for youth. On stage violence and intimacy direction credits include Goodman Theatre, Shakespeare Dallas, Writers Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, and Steppenwolf for Young Adults. Intimacy coordinating credits include GLOW on NETFLIX and THE RED LINE on CBS, as well as many other television shows and films currently in production.