Every so often, a feature article will appear about me in a brochure, a study guide, or a newspaper inquiring what it's like to be a voice, text, and dialect coach. Here are examples from the Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, MD; Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC; two from the Shakespeare Theatre Company, also in Washington, DC; Westword, a newspaper magazine in Denver, CO; the Folger Shakespeare Theatre; and the Chautauqua Institute in New York. Following those, there are selected newspaper and online magazine reviews mentioning my work. Usually, I'd prefer no mention at all; because, if I'm doing it well then the language and dialect work is imperceptible at the conscious level. Still, critics are there to discern and evaluate, and it's always nice when they feel that the work I do has hit the right note.
This gallery of posters and promotional materials represents a variety of selected plays from the over 150 productions that I have coached, and the extraordinary houses in which they were produced. As a voice, text, and dialect coach, I have had the opportunity to work in some of the finest and in some cases the most challenging theatres in the country. Whether it's Dubliner, Senegalese, French, Estuary British, Nigerian, Mandarin, or just plain English, accents and dialects have to be audible and intelligible, even in the round. And even more importantly, the actor must sound authentically connected to what he or she is saying. Have fun riffling through the astonishingly different sorts of theatres in which I've had the honor to work, many of them recipients of the Tony Award™ for Best Regional Theatre. In 1998 and 2012, I had been a long-time company member of the Denver Center Theatre Company and the Shakespeare Theatre Company (respectively) when they each won the Tony Award™ for Best Regional Theatre.
The Eloquent Shakespeare: A Pronouncing Dictionary for the Complete Dramatic Works, With Notes to Untie the Modern Tongue, published by the University of Chicago Press, is now a staple in such programs as the Juilliard Shool of Drama, the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting, Canada's National Voice Intensive, Vassar College, and many others. For more than five years, it remained in Amazon Books' Top 100 list for reference and performing arts books and has garnered international acclaim.
This space allows you to read reviews from The Voice and Speech Review and Shakespeare Quarterly, among others, and, via the provided link, thumb through several of its pages. You can access it here:
Images:
Top: The Eloquent Shakespeare, cover design: Matt Avery
Middle: William Safire, Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times columnist ("On Language"), signing over his copy of The Eloquent Shakespeare to John Andrews, out-going president of the English Speaking Union, at the British Embassy, Washington, DC. (l to r) John Andrews, Mark Olshaker, Gary Logan, William Safire.
Bottom: Amazon Product Details for the book, including it's place in the Top 100 in three categories and the indication of 43 five-star customer reviews.
This gallery of photos highlights many of the great artists and personages whom I've had the pleasure of collaborating with. All are extraordinary individuals. Some are actors I have coached or worked with in some way, some are teachers I have had, and some are directors, artistic directors, production artists and colleagues whom I have had the immense privilege of working with. Some you will recognize and others you won't, but their degree of fame is really inconsequential; all are exceptional for their accomplishments in the theatre and/or the film and television world, and each has had a great influence on my career.
The best way for me to learn more about language, English in particular, is to practice it in the many ways it can inform my understanding. For me, there is no better way to practice than writing poetry. Shakespeare's influence has always been strong, and his poetry, his imagery and motifs, structure and form, and his ability to strike universal chords have all left an impression, a kind of cicatrix. Other poets continue to shape and reshape my understanding of language, as well; they serve to inspire, and via that inspiration, something new comes out of it. Here are selected poems I have written that have taught me something. And if they happen to incite your imagination, too, then all the better.
I am attracted to language and story-telling, but not all language and not all story-telling is done through the spoken word. As a director of plays I've had to sharpen my eye to imagery, design, motif, color, focus, and composition, because the story is often told through the eye as much as the ear. The best way for me to hone the skill of visual story-telling is to capture images that say something, to me, anyway. Here are selected photos I have taken that reflect things about how I want to say what I want to say when directing.
This space is my closet space, stuffed with things like photos and reviews from plays I have directed, short guides I have written, two of the several radio interviews I've done, etc. I include material about two acting companies and training programs, one of which I am a founding member (Classics in Color, NYC) and the other where I am on the Advisory Board and sometime guest (DADA: Denver Academy of Dramatic Arts, Denver). Some projects are core and some are peripheral; they are in a fluid state shifting from one to the other depending on what involvement I might have at any given time. And some projects, such as the plays I direct, are ephemeral in that they absorb a great deal of time and energy while I am in production, and then are suddenly over. What is left are the photos, the promotional material, the reviews, and some extraordinary memories.
This space is a catalog of my teaching and professional career, including some the directing I’ve done for Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama. In it you will find photos, links, my Curriculum Vitae, my coaching and directing Résumés, my Professional Statement, a visual of the many places I have taught, and other materials related to my teaching. I am fortunate enough to stay very busy, and although it looks as if I can't stay in any one place for very long, the actual truth is that in the thirty-six years I have held full-time employment, I have only had three ‘homes’: the National Theatre Conservatory at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Denver, Colorado (1985-2005), the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting at The George Washington University, Washington, DC (2005-2016), and the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2016-). Since 1994, I have been a faculty member of Canada's National Voice Intensive, now the Moving Voice Institute, an on-going exploration of the actor's voice.
