Steve is an actor, fight director and director with 40 years of experience. Currently he is an adjunct professor at California Institute for the Arts. Professionally as a fight director he just returned from Berlin staging fights for a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This July he will stage the new play KILL LOCAL at the La Jolla Playhouse followed by a world premiere of the new musical SUMMER. Then at the Berkeley he will stage another world premiere musical called AIN’T TOO PROUD.
Other fight directing credits include on Broadway: Jersey Boys, Memphis, The Who’s Tommy, Guys and Dolls, Doctor Zhivago, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Anna Christie, The Real Inspector Hound and the Tony award winning production of Henry IV at Lincoln Center in which he played Poins and served as fight director.
Regional Theaters of note: The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, The Old Globe where he is an Associate Artist as an Actor and Fight Director, La Jolla Playhouse, Taper, Center Stage, Ahmanson, etal. He has also staged fights for the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Los Angeles Opera and the San Diego Opera.
As an actor Mr. Rankin has done over 60 roles as a Guest Star on television including, True Blood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, NCIS, NYPD Blue, CSI, Maloney, Malcolm in the Middle, Leverage, Space Above and Beyond, Star Trek Next Generation, Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Star Trek Enterprise. In film he has starring roles in Blue Streak, The One, Apollo 13, Men In Black, Pearl Harbor and the soon to be released LISTEN. In the theater he has performed over 100 roles in such plays as Romeo and Juliet, Julius Ceasar, The Misanthrope, Midsummer’s Night Dream, Pig Farm, Ghosts, Henry IV, Twelfth Night, Doctor Faustus, Lone Star, etal.
He has taught for UCSD in La Jolla, USD San Diego, Actors Theater of Louisville, Center Stage, Julliard School of Opera, Center Stage Baltimore, Virginia Stage Company and currently at CalArts.