Fay Van Alstyne Simpson

Fay (she/her) is the founder of the internationally acclaimed Lucid Body process and is an Arts Professor and Head of Movement at NYU’s Graduate Acting Program. She has been a physical acting director and somatic acting coach for more than twenty years. The Lucid Body is a psycho-physical process of introspection, exertion, and mental challenge that empowers actors and dancers to express human complexity and passion with safety and skill.

Re-balancing the nervous system and energetic body of each actor and between actors after every rehearsal is a priority and the reason she became an intimacy coordinator. Fay is the author of The Lucid Body: A Guide for the Physical Actor and has established a two-year teacher training program that has certified more than twenty-five Lucid Body instructors worldwide. She has also taught at The Yale School of Drama, the New School’s Eugene Lang, Michael Howard Studios, The Studio/NY, Marymount Manhattan College, and The Actors Center. Fay was awarded a Fox Foundation Fellowship to intern with Mark Rylance at the Globe Theater in London in 2000.

Her work as an intimacy choreographer and director is deeply informed by her decades-long career in modern dance and physical theater. As the creator of the Lucid Body process, Fay has equipped performers with tools to navigate vulnerability, boundaries, and emotional authenticity. Drawing on her background in movement directing and devising, she brings both safety and artistry into seamless balance while collaborating with and fulfilling the director’s vision. She has choreographed intimacy for numerous plays, ballets, and screen projects, with credits that include Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Classical Theater of Harlem directed by Carl Cofield, Dracula with Ballet Met in Columbus, Ohio, Marys Seacole directed by Machel Ross at the Shubert Theatre, A Song of Songs at El Puente, and the film Gage County, NE, directed by Cecilia Rubino. Fay’s educational background underpins this multifaceted practice. She is an IPA-certified Intimacy Coordinator (2025), holds a Master of Arts in Theatre Studies from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre with a minor in Dance from Colorado College.

Email: intimacy@faysimpson.com

Website: www.intimacy.faysimpson.com