Voice 4

Voice IV is the fourth of our four 24-class, 12-week semesters dedicated to freeing the natural voice.

Once the actor’s voice has been freed from personal habits and speech patterns, it is now fully available to take on the full range and dynamic possibilities of other voices. One reason, aside from their dedication to training that British actors are now taking American roles is their incredible command of dialects. Our work in Voice IV is dedicated not just to dialect technique, but wedding that to a deep, rich connection to material. Common pitfalls in adopting an accent are a sacrificing of personal connection to the text in pursuit of the proper sound, and also a lack of specificity, which can make a dialect sloppy, general, and therefore inconsistent and amateurish. This is an important aspect to character work, which is the highest form of acting. How do you combine craft and technique while also adopting an accent not your own? How do you do this without losing your ability to listen, respond and achieve without sacrificing the rich character created by the playwright or screenwriter.

Voice IV provides precise tools to develop accents with nuance, artistry, and clarity. Not only do students gain familiarity with up to 20 accents in this class, but they also learn a template for studying and approaching voices other than their own. Accents are fully embodied, taking into account the rhythm of speech, environmental factors, important insight into the origin of the accent, and specificity of sounds through the use of the phonetic alphabet.

Acquired accents are presented to the class, and, as a final project, applied to a platform speech, which is then performed in public. Calling on the great speeches of history, the platform speech lends itself to passion and a call to action. Therefore the accent is put to the test of being deeply rooted in emotional investment, while having a strong intention to affect the listener. This is an opportunity for students to fully realize the two years of hard work that has been done on not just their voice, but also their entire instrument. Using all of the craft and artistry learned in acting class, combined with a pliable body and resonant voice to create something dynamic and compelling to watch.

Voice I, Voice II and Voice III are prerequisites for this class.