Actors in training take courses in voice, movement, and acting, and it’s all too easy to conceptualize these classes into two buckets: “acting” and “the courses that don’t have ‘acting’ in the title.” Often, student actors think of movement and voice as ancillary skills that, at best, support their acting.
My take is that, while acting skills like presence, action, objective, the magic “if”, etc. are important facets of a psychophysical technique, audiences only experience what they can see and hear from an actor. We can’t telepathically beam our thoughts into another person’s mind, so if an audience member can’t perceive something through your body or voice using their eyes and ears, it doesn’t exist for them.
So I like to think of voice class as the one that focuses on the audible aspects of your acting. Movement is the class that focuses on the visible aspects. And “acting” class is the one that focuses on the imaginative and psychological processes that integrate and organize your voice and movement toward story. The core physical skills in a psychophysical technique are just as important as the psychological ones. Voice is acting. Movement is acting. And acting is voice and movement.
In this frame of mind, voice class isn’t just about dialects or character voices. Voice class is also about presence, action, objective, and circumstances…and how to make those things audible. And it’s my responsibility, as a voice and speech practitioner, to keep the connection to acting explicit and accessible for the artists I’m working with.
Nevertheless, the perception of the voice and speech teacher or coach as a non-actor with a strange affinity for micromanaging speech sounds persists. Many actors treat voice coaching like a trip to the principal’s office, and many directors fear that the voice coach will ruin the actors’ performances by putting them “in their heads”.
In order to try to help folks understand what it is I do, several years ago I drafted the following documents:
I don’t know if these documents help to shift perspectives and expectations, or whether they simply confirm that I’m an over-prepared nerd.
I wonder…How might these documents be better?