First off, some brief lessons from sociolinguistics… Everyone has an accent. To say that someone’s speech lacks accent features is akin to saying that person lacks facial features. When someone is said to have “no accent” (or “just a hint of an accent”), it is likely they speak with an accent that reflects dominant identities […]
Invisible Storytelling: Production Dialect Design Read More »
Although I have worked with many different directors of Shakespeare in many different productions, and I pride myself on being a supportive colleague and adaptable coach, it would be disingenuous of me to claim that I do not have certain personal aesthetic preferences when it comes to verse speaking. Primarily, I believe that poetry should
A Verse-Speaking Aesthetic Read More »
Here’s the handout I gave to my students this term. It’s a big experiment, and it grew out of the fact that at the end of each term, I have to rank, categorize, and label all of the unique human beings I’ve gotten to know over the course of a semester. I want to be
Thoughts on Grading Read More »
The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in the Voice and Speech Review 12:3, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23268263.2018.1518378.
The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in the Voice and Speech Review 11:3, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23268263.2017.1398392
Exercise Essay: Vowel Yoga Read More »
This spring I had the opportunity to direct Anton Chekhov’s Seagull with a phenomenal group of student actors at UVU. We started with a month of silent-etude-based rehearsal in place of table work and included a collaborator from the dance department to bring this production to life. I hope you’ll enjoy some photos from the production.
Directing Chekhov’s “Seagull” Read More »
Originally published November 4, 2017 on the KTSpeechblog: Posture Through Movement Here’s an odd question: What if Speaking With Skill had been written specifically for French speakers (perhaps by Dudley “Chevalier”)? The “vowel calisthenics” figure-8 exercise beginning on page 279 might look something like this…try it out! Does your mouth feel more French yet? Sometimes coaching an
Posture Through Movement Read More »
Originally published September 5, 2017 on the KTSpeechblog: Formality A few weeks ago, fellow KTS-er Julie Foh and I presented together in Singapore at the VASTA conference. Our topic was “Linguistic Detail in Singlish” and I was thinking a lot about, well, linguistic detail…but also the idea of formality. And I stumbled into a can
Originally published May 1, 2017 on the KTSpeechblog: Uptalk? I recently attended a two-day webinar devoted to transgender voice and communication training for voice clinicians. It was a fantastic experience, and I would recommend the training without hesitation. Even in a super-inclusive and culturally-sensitive environment, people are bound to put a foot in a mouth
Originally published March 20, 2017 on the KTSpeechblog: How Many Accents? From Jeremy: In the last two posts, we (the editors) introduced ourselves and let you eavesdrop on one of our conversations. But enough about us! We’d like to hear from you. The big question I’m wrestling with today is: In a college accents course,