Coaching

Voice, Speech, Dialects, Accents, Text

I coach actors on various national and global accents, with a specialty in accents of Africa and the African Diaspora.

I offer coaching to theatres, film, television and media companies. 

Voice

 

I coach actors to build vocal confidence through a holistic approach that grows the person towards expressive authenticity and precision founded on Fitzmaurice and Linklater voice systems.

 

Text

 

text (n. ) from Latin textus "style or texture of a work," literally "thing woven," from past participle stem of texere "to weave, to join, fit together, braid, interweave, construct, fabricate, build," 

- Online Etymological Dictionary

The text invites the actor to make tangible connections between process and product. I work with performers to weave the text with intellect, imagination, insight, and impulse through various traditional and non-traditional materials. My text work ignites from a passion for words, rooted in an organic, physical sense of language.

 

Dialect Coaching

 

I believe that accent and dialect work is advanced character work. An important step is to own the sounds, but it is equally vital to integrate those sounds into character choices so that the focus is not on the speech, but the needs of the living character.

It is specifically important to move away from stereotyping through a dialect or accent.  Dialect/accent acquisition is a controversial topic and the idea of someone taking on another ethnicity or nationality is touchy.  The only way of avoiding diminishing that character and the culture she, he or they are a part of, is by familiarizing oneself with the sounds and rhythms, not only of the dialect, but the idiolect, the precise way that the individual communicates, and to bring one’s humanity to the role. 

A course in dialects or accents should be a course in cultural appreciation not in cultural mockery. 

A Partial List of Clients

 

The American Players Theatre

The Cleveland Playhouse 

Actor’s Theatre of Louisville

Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

Shakespeare Santa Cruz