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Volume 1, Issue 5
December 2005

Table of Contents:

A Message from the President
From the Editor
Burning Issues, Hot Topics
An Interview with Director Timothy Douglas
Announcing a VASTA Sponsored Regional Outreach Workshop
Synthesis through Singing
Member News

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Lisa Wilson

My Fellow VASTAns,
Following the catastrophic weather and losses many of you have endured this fall; my first hope is that you and yours are now safe. Recovery will be a long process for those most directly affected, our thoughts of support and strength go out to you, your families, colleagues and students.

The fall seems to be galloping away, as I write this the board and officers are preparing for the fall board meeting November 11-13 in Chicago. The agenda will include:

This Voice brings you one of my favorite sections, Member News from your Regional Editors. When I read the updates from members here and across the seas, friendly smiles, laughter, passionate voices, and wise words are conjured in my memory. Connectivity among our membership forms a supportive network of colleagues, which is of the best traditions of VASTA.

The Voice is an excellent venue for advertising to the voice community. If you are interested in advertising in the Voice please contact Miriam Van Mersbergen at <mvanmersbergen@yahoo.com> . This includes opportunities for academic search ads for voice and speech positions, conferences, workshops and the like.

As the holidays approach, with all of the stress and excitement, stay present and keep breathing,

Lisa Wilson
VASTA President 04-06

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FROM THE EDITOR

Erica Tobolski

In lieu of my usual letter this month, I am doing something a bit different. The following is a Member “Spotlight” on Bettye Zoller Seitz.

Bettye Zoller Seitz, was interviewed recently for a Korean television show aimed at Korean young people pursuing careers in the arts -- music,acting, production for television, radio, film. Korea is addressing the widespread problem of suicides among the young, particularly students of the arts. She was tapped for the interview as a result of being chosen this year as a Clarion Award judge. The Clarion Awards are presented annually by the Association of Women in Communication. The award recognizes excellence in print journalism, radio television production, video and film. She attended the national AWC Conference this week meeting women in the communication professions, and participating in the annual awards banquet.

Ms. Zoller Seitz was profiled in the October 20th issue of Backstage West (page 14A-"Pitch Perfect") for her work as a voiceover talent, voice and voiceover coach, and the popular teacher of business courses in the show business field. Her "Business of Voiceovers" course and her "Techniques of Voice Acting" workshops are presented regularly in Dallas at El Centro College as a continuing education offering. She welcomes invitations to present workshops in other locations. She'll be teaching in Los Angeles and Houston during 2006.

She operates an audio recording studio in Dallas, is an audio engineer/producer. Clients include Simon and Schuster audiobooks. She is the author of eleven audiobooks and the featured voiceover talent in hundreds of national commercials and the narrator of major videos and films. This is her twenty-sixth year in the field.

Bettye Zoller
www.voicesvoices.com
PH: 214-638-TALK (8255)

If you have ideas for articles or would like to submit an article for future issues, please contact Erica Tobolski, Editor at tobolski@sc.edu, or Allison Hetzel, Associate Editor at ahetzel25@aol.com

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Burning Issues, Hot Topics

Karen Ryker

VASTA’s Glasgow 2005 conference presented many stimulating sessions and opportunities to exchange ideas with our colleagues around the globe.  The Things That Work session, a staple of the VASTA conferences for many years, provided another opportunity to get to know one another and to learn of familiar concerns across continents.  During the session members introduced themselves and described their “burning issues.” And other members with similar interests and concerns made connections which they could later explore over a table or pursue at the Saturday member presentations or by gathering in one of the friendly pubs. 

An enormous number of people (90-100) attended the session, so we barely managed to get through each member’s introduction and statement of burning issues in the 75 minutes.  But judging from the number of verbal and visual responses to many topics introduced, enough was said to generate interest in follow-up discussions.  As members poured out of the session, many dropped into animated conversation with those around them, tagging members with similar issues and making appointments to meet and continue discussions.

What follows is a compiled list of the topics frequently mentioned during that session. These topics are fodder for further conversation among members which could continue over email (or telephone – what a concept!).  If you see a topic of interest and wish to begin dialogue with others, why not log onto the vastavox (go to www.VASTA.org and click on to sign up for this listserv) and organize a “mini-listserv” of those who would like to communicate about the issue?  There might be food here for future conference topics, or items for VASTA action. 

BURNING ISSUES TOPICS:  As topics are listed, I’ve occasionally referred in **Italics to resources on the subject available through VASTA.

Karen Ryker, VASTA member
Professor of Voice and Acting
University of Connecticut

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An Interview with Director Timothy Douglas

Debra Hale

How does a voice teacher turned director incorporate voice into his rehearsal process? Timothy Douglas is a nationally established director in regional theatre. Debra Hale, a professor at Florida State University, met Timothy in 1993 when they became Designated teachers of Kristin Linklater’s work. Hale observed his rehearsals of Fences, which began in Philadelphia earlier this year at the Arden Theatre and moved to Actors Theatre of Louisville. Just prior to that, Douglas was selected by the late great August Wilson to direct the East Coast premiere of Radio Golf, the last play in his cycle. “Timothy’s work is refreshing and inspirational,” Debra claims, “in that his respect for the actor’s instincts is paramount--and the voice work is, of course, seamless. The actors express their tremendous range, feeling and clarity with great joy.” Here is an excerpt from her interview with him.

 D: You’ve done – how many regional productions now?

T: (laughs) This would be – 59.

D: What is it about August Wilson’s plays that ignite your passion?

T: What’s so satisfying about working on his plays is the authenticity of the black American voice. He somehow manages in his language and his storytelling to encompass what’s happening in the period that he’s writing, but it has a direct connection all the way back to Africa, the legacy of the descendants of slaves – without hammering away at it. It’s just always present and not only for the listener, but for the actor. Because as black Americans we don’t have that – we don’t have that connection to our ancestry directly. Of course, we have a connection, but in terms of it being part of our living culture, we don’t have that anymore. He brings us something in his writing that calls up the ancestors into the room.

D: I like the tradition of storytelling in your rehearsals. How did you start doing that – was there a particular story or incident that sparked it?

T: It came from Kristin Linklater and Tina Packer – it is a combination – the idea that I don’t have the right to tell anybody’s story if I can’t tell my own. It’s also about telling stories that happen every day. First there were stories about last night, which triggered stories about “my daddy,” or “my girlfriend,” or something like that. And I noticed from that how seamlessly we dove into rehearsal and how open people were – people were then starting more active work from such an open place. Then it was by design that I spent the first part of rehearsals catching up. Not only did people get used to telling their story, but they also got used to listening. So the rule was one person talking at a time. And you know there are several times when the story is not interesting to other people, but you just be respectful and let that happen. I mean there’s a perspective of – you are not always going to like the other person’s story, or the other actor’s performance. But you learn how to use that, because the characters don’t always need to like what the other person is saying or be interested in what the other person is saying. And the dilemma of that is interesting to watch. It may be an actor who is not really interested in what the other actor is doing, but if they are present, the audience sees it as character.

D: How does the voice work inform your directing?

T: The biggest key is the breath – the organic release of the breath – that is the source. The image that came to me yesterday is a heartbeat. We have no control over our heart beating, but yet it is the foundation of everything that happens in our bodies. Organic breath is the heartbeat for every expression. I really look for that. Without getting into a classroom feel – I zero in on each individual and where that individual’s holding is and find ways to help them release without going into their head about it.

The way I circumvent that is – well, what happened with Stephanie [ Berry] the other day. She was in the scene – the revelation that Troy was going to be a daddy – and it hit her. She’s a very sensitive actress and it struck her in that place, but then she immediately started to shut herself down. The enormity of that – she didn’t want to let that out. In some way she felt it was inappropriate, that that was private work and she wanted to have time on her own to build that. I’m just guessing that, she didn’t actually say that to me. But I encouraged her in that moment, don’t worry about what it looks like, just let it out. Let it out! Just make yourself talk – she stopped talking. She tried to pull herself together and I discouraged pulling herself together, just use the words, use the words, what a wonderful thing that she did it – it was amazing! It was exactly right on, it was huge, it was exactly what you’d expect a woman to feel that was in a situation like that. Tears started to flow, but it didn’t stop her from communicating. It was so enormous that it required her body to engage.

She’s a wonderful actress – so clear about not hurting another actor, but she had these papers in her hand and she started hitting this guy with the paper and he trusted her enormously so it was just great that he let her go where she needed to go. She got to the other end and she knew what happened, she felt the release. Immediately she very quietly said when I went near her, “I’m so embarrassed.” I said to her, “Yes, exactly – that’s exactly where Rose would be – that’s what I saw in that scene that this woman is humiliated in this moment and now I understand all this dialogue.”

I said to her “Don’t question the actor – it’s the character. You brought it up, you’re that brilliant.” And I say this very sincerely to actors, you don’t even know how brilliant you are, but the part of you that’s the actor, the part of you where the character is created - works faster than your brain, than your intellect. What I always say is whatever you’re feeling in any given moment, even if it feels inappropriate, first give it to the character – even if it seems inappropriate to the scene. Don’t assume the actor is doing something wrong, let the character make the statement that you are attempting to make as an actor. Try it. Speak from that place. When the actor understands what I’m saying and gives in to it, it works every single time.

It’s beyond my imagination as a director to give any idea about the character, it’s beyond the imagination of the actor – anything they thought – and I’m talking about actors who do their homework! It’s still a limitation compared to their intuitive nature. And if I encourage them to give over to their intuitive side, the breath kicks in. I see that the breath falls into place, that organic breathing rhythm. And then at that point I can talk to them about the organic breathing rhythm without their going into their heads about it.

D: How can more educators – people who teach in professional actor training programs – encourage that intuitive approach?

T: For me, it’s very important to be present – what do I mean by that? I actually have to be willing to be at the level of my student - or whomever I’m working with. Like a midwife, I have to be breathing with them and be a guide. I have to be side by side with them, not in front of them and trying to pull them in my direction, but actually walk with them and take my cue from them. They will absolutely tell me what they need from me. But that requires vulnerability on my part. That’s one of the first agreements I make: I have to be that open. And that’s not easy – and I don’t see that a lot of current educational institutions are set up for that. But it is possible to do.

D: What excites you about the process?

T: When the actors acknowledge or accept that they know more about their characters than I do – when they take the lead in the story that they tell. When I see that in rehearsal, it makes me so happy.

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Announcing a VASTA Sponsored Regional Outreach Workshop

Janet B. Rodgers

What: VOICES OF THE ARCHETYPES OF MYTH
Who: Taught by Frankie Armstrong*
Where: Kinnersley Castle, Kinnersley, Hereford, England
When: June 9-June 17, 2006

Cost (Tuition and Fees):

Deposit:

Lodging and Food:

Total cost of Workshop (including Tuition, Lodging, Food and Fees):

This one week residential workshop, taught by Frankie Armstrong*, has been created for members of the voice and speech profession. Attendees will explore ways of accessing Archetypes through voice, movement and imagination. The workshop will take place in the Great Hall of Kinnersley Castle, where attendees will be housed for the one week duration of workshop. The workshop is limited to 16 attendees so please reserve a space early.

This workshop provides an exciting way to expand and liberate vocal colour, range and epressivity. Workshop participants will explore figures taken from the world's mythologies, such as The Huntress, The Child, The Chrone, The Trickster and The Initiator, amongst others.

If there is interest, we will arrange a weekend trip to Stratford Upon Avon upon the completion of the workshop. Costs of the Stratford excursion will be in addition to the workshop fees.

For more information about the Archetypes Workshop, please contact:

Janet B. Rodgers
Theatre VCU
922 Park Avenue
Richmond, VA 23284

w. 804-828-6557
h. 804.355-5305

*The amazing Frankie Armstrong has been singing professionally since the mid 1960s and has been a voice pioneer for thirty years. She has taught all over the world and has led Archetype Vocal workshops for the National Theatre Studio, International Workshop Festival, International Giving Voice Festival and, most recently, taught this with Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni, founding members of Theatre Complicite.

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Synthesis through Singing

Laura Wayth

My favorite quote is from E.M. Forster– “Only Connect”. It is interesting that an actor’s work is all about connecting. The actor must connect to the truth of the text that they are speaking, they must connect to their instrument, they must connect to their scene partners and, by connecting to their scene partners, connect to the hearts and minds of an audience. An actor’s work is all about connection and yet when we train actors by focusing very specifically and deeply on various aspects of their training, their craft, despite our best efforts, starts to fragment into separate elements, disconnecting from a coherent whole. I have seen it time and again– the student actor is beautifully aligned when focusing on alignment in movement class and wonderfully supported when focusing on breath support in voice class, and yet, when they move into scene study class at such early stages in their training, they are often unable to carry-over and apply what they have learned. Focus shifts to the task of pursuing stage action truthfully and to navigating its many pitfalls. Habitual tensions return and the beginnings of vocal and physical craft temporarily unravel.

How then do you focus on the individual components of actor training that demand close and isolated attention while at the same time providing a way for actors to see the larger picture necessary to view their craft in an integrated way? Similarly, in a culture of immediacy, what methods can you use to link the slow and steady process of acquiring vocal craft to the actor’s process in the here-and-now so that at the outset the actor recognizes that vocal craft is the foundation of acting craft and not a separate enterprise?

In my classroom, singing is the answer.

I have found use of the singing voice in spoken voice training to be a wonderful way to synthesize and connect all facets of the actor’s craft. I incorporate sung vocal technique into all of my “spoken” voice classes. It is good, first of all, to have actors realize right away that they only have one voice. Actor training often separates singing classes from voice and speech classes, causing actors to splinter their conception of their voice into two separate categories. Like many voice practitioners, I believe that the singing voice is the speaking voice at its most powerful, most heightened, most colorful, and most truthful. Well-spoken text is “sung” whether we recognize it and categorize it as being musical or not. It has line, dynamics, and musicality. Having actors realize that they have a single voice and that they do not have a separate singing voice and a separate speaking voice is the first step to achieving a sense of unity in craft and training.

Incorporating sung vocal technique in spoken voice training synthesizes the vocal instrument with the totality of the actor’s physical being in a heightened way. The act of singing is an athletic event. It requires the greatest concentration of breath support, power, range and control available to the actor. Most importantly, like any athletic event, it relies on a kinesthetic rather than an intellectual awareness. It is for this reason that I turn to singing when teaching actors about breath and support. I find that actors, particularly those of a very bright and analytical nature, often get confused when we begin to discuss the breath. This becomes particularly problematic if the way that I am describing the process of breathing conflicts with the images used by previous or current teachers. Rather than enlightening and empowering them (as a knowledge of the mechanics of breath should) for many students the process becomes confusing and frustrating. With this in mind, after discussing the mechanics of breath I immediately turn to singing to meld intellectual understanding into a physical experience. I have actors experience breath support through brief singing exercises during floor work. By linking breath immediately to a sustained singing sound and in by-passing speaking, I find that actors are able to leap over ingrained speaking habit quite rapidly. The process of release of tension and habit is accelerated and finds, in my experience, an easy and smooth translation to the new habits of efficiency that they are acquiring in movement work.

When working on texts in voice class, I ask actors during each session to sing their texts. I will call upon them to sing specific words that are lacking support, color, or passion and will have them sing entire monologues and scenes. Invariably through the process of singing they discover something new they did not find before. Again, I believe that singing breaks the actor free from habitual voice use, expanding the range of colors of the spoken voice and enlivening the actor’s traditional and customary palette. Singing surprises the actor with new ways to communicate, breaking them free of the pre-programmed responses that they have unconsciously conditioned. Alternating between a sustained singing tone and a spoken, conversation tone enables actors to retain many of these discoveries in the specific texts that they have worked and to apply such discoveries to new and unexplored texts.

In addition to broadening the actor’s range and dynamics, singing the text informs the actor instinctively about language structure. Because a sustained singing sound must be supported, I find that actors discover an intuitive logic in the structure of written texts when singing that they often overlook or take for granted when speaking. It is fascinating to me that an actor can speak several lines of text, completely ignoring punctuation and eliding one idea into the next and then, when asked to sing the exact same text, inherently makes sense of things. A return to speaking after such an exercise informs and enriches the actor’s work– they most often retain the sense of linguistic structure that they instinctively found through singing. Singing provides an intuitive roadmap for the structure of written texts. It is therefore not only a wonderful tool for developing the physical/vocal instrument but is an extremely valuable tool to compliment and support text/linguistic analysis.

But perhaps most importantly, singing, more than any other tool in my opinion, connects the actor to the core of his/her spiritual and emotional being. We have learned in our lives to mask truth when we speak as a defense. We have not needed to teach ourselves to do this when we sing. We sing to celebrate, we sing to remember, and we sing to discover– we sing to share what is in our hearts, not to hide it. Singing is a direct pipeline to the soul, incorporating the intellect but stronger than the intellect alone. It is therefore difficult to lie when you sing. Acting is about many things but above all acting is about the pursuit of the truth. The training that we give actors is the effort to provide them with all of the tools needed to free the truth. Singing is the greatest single tool for such access that I can think of.

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Member News

INTERNATIONAL

LINDA CARTWRIGHT ( New Zealand) is preparing to leave Unitec New Zealand’s School of Performing & Screen Arts after 13 years in order to work in the private sector. If anyone is interested in coming to New Zealand to fill this position for a year or more, please send a CV to <jhendry@unitec.ac.nz> or contact Linda on <linda.cartwright@clear.net.nz> . Our school year starts in mid-February 2006.

GILLYANNE KAYES ( U.K.) has created an Audio Guide to accompany her first book, Singing and the Actor. The CD is available through Gillyanne’s training company Vocal Process <www.vocalprocess.co.uk>. Gillyanne has completed a first year of research study and recently presented for the Pan-European Voice Conference at a workshop entitled “Perspective on Passaggio for Contemporary Singers”. She continues to train teachers via the Integrated Voice certification programme and remains a consultant to the MA Perf. in musical theatre at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and to the MAVS course at Central School of Speech and Drama.

ELIZABETH MEYER ( France) will be teaching on Pantheatre ACTS Voice Performance School, a professional training context, which includes Roy Hart voice training, for actors, singers, dancers and performance artists. This will be held in Paris (October to April) and Malérargues (May to July). She will also be working on a Voice Performance intensive in Paris during January / February 2006 and a Myths of the Voice Conference in Wales during April, as well as a workshop in Malérargues for advanced / professional Spanish-speaking voice teachers, singers and actors in May. All details for these workshops are on <www.pantheatre.com>.

LINDA NICHOLLS-GIDLEY ( Australia) has just completed a Master of Creative Arts by Research, looking at the “Decline of Received Pronunciation on the Australian Stage” with specific reference to Shakespeare and Classic theatre. She and her colleague at the University of Wollongong, Lotte Latukefu (a singing teacher), have just presented a paper on “Singer/Actor, Actor/Singer – skill acquisition in a multidisciplinary institution” at the 7 th National Voice Symposium of Australia. They are researching the way their combined pedagogies further their students’ skills. Linda is also looking forward to Catherine Fitzmaurice’s return to Australia after Catherine’s very successful workshop at the Symposium.

LISE OLSON ( U.K.) organised the first ever VASTA overseas Conference Breaking Boundaries: Crossing the Cultural Divide for which Cicely Berry was the Keynote Speaker. Over 100 world-wide VASTANs were welcomed to Glasgow this summer. Lise is currently Head of the MA Programme in Acting at LIPA, as well as coaching Stephen Jeffrey’s new play, I Just Stopped By to See the Man at the Bolton Octagon Theatre and Harvey at the Royal Exchange Theatre. She has been chosen to present her innovative Acting Through Song workshop at the International Stephen Sondheim Conference, using West End professionals as her ‘students’.

SIMON RATCLIFFE ( U.K.) is in his third year of work since training at the Central School of Speech and Drama on the MAVS course led by David Carey. He teaches voice and text on the 3-year acting programme and the one year postgraduate course at the Oxford School of Drama. He also teaches voice at the London International School of Performing Arts, a Lecoq based school of creation. It attracts an international group, including students from the MFA programme at Naropa University, Boulder. Simon also teaches short courses for professional actors, teachers and other voice users and has private clients.

LISSA RENAUD ( Korea) is visiting Professor of Voice at Korean National University of Arts and continues California voice practice over the Internet. January: interviewed by voice students at Osaka’s School of Music. February: in Kerala, India, performed and taught “Vocal Design” workshops at Lokadharmi Theatre; gave keynote speech for Cochin University conference. June: awarded Ford Foundation Grant in Art and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (declined), September: gave a paper for Seoul’s international symposium on Interdisciplinarity in Theatre Education. Lissa is an ongoing member of Bay Area’s Artists Reading Writers series and is co-editing a book with Ellen Margolis.

CANADA

ERIC ARMSTRONG  ( York University, Toronto) with Dawn Mari McCaugherty, presented on the “Personal Voice Curriculum” at VASTA-Day in Glasgow. He coached Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus at CanStage in September/October. He edited the “VASTA Voice Radio” piece for the September issue of the VASTA Voice. This summer ‘The Voice Guy’ experimented with blogging and podcasting and developed the “Imagine IPA Newsletter” so students could practice their skills, at <www.yorku.ca/earmstro/imagine>. He spent much of the spring getting the resolution right on the images in the fourth Voice & Speech Review. He is currently busy preparing his tenure file while working on his ability to say "no" to exciting opportunities.

BRAD GIBSON (Vancouver) is currently teaching Voice and Speech at HELP University College (HUC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he is developing a Centre for Voice and Speech with a curriculum based on Linklater, Skinner and Lessac, creating a training DVD and will be joining HUC's ‘American Degree Program’ offering Voice, Speech and Acting courses for transfer to AUS, UK and US Universities. In spring 2005 Brad completed his MFA and Voice Teaching Diploma ( York University) and was returning faculty at Canada’s National Voice Intensive. Brad also serves as ongoing web-bibliographer for the VASTA Online Bibliography and will return to the Voice Intensive in 2006.

MARK INGRAM ( Toronto Film School, York University, Randolph Academy) has had another busy year, completing his MFA (with Voice Teaching diploma) at York, acting in The Seagull, The Idiots Karamazov, The Life of Galileo, and No Exit, teaching voice at York and the Humber College School of Comedy and continuing to run the Rogue & Peasant Theatre Co. <www.roguetheatre.org>. This summer he was on faculty at Canada’s National Voice Intensive. Currently he’s teaching voice and acting at Toronto Film School, York and the Randolph Academy. He’s also voice coaching Three Birds Alighting on a Field and doing fight choreography on The Princess Bride.

DAWN McCAUGHERTY ( University of Calgary) is pleased to return to teaching following a six-month sabbatical of study and travel. In May, she participated in a two-week intensive in Baby Clown, led by John Turner, member of the company Mump and Smoot: Clowns of Horror. She returned as senior faculty for a fifth year to Canada’s National Voice Intensive and in August presented with Eric Armstrong at VASTA-Day at the conference in Glasgow. At the university, she has been active in the development of the new Consortium for Peace Studies www.ucalgary.ca/~peaceuc/ and was recently awarded tenure.

BETTY MOULTON ( University of Alberta) is thrilled to announce the new MFA program at the University of Alberta in Theatre Voice Pedagogy, accepting two candidates, fall 2006. Look for more details from a direct mailing this month and log on to the Department of Drama website at http://www.ualberta.ca/drama (follow the grad program links). Many thanks for all who gave advice over the past few years! Betty returned to coach at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival for a ninth season last summer and was vocal director for Lips Love Legs, a performance twinning the arts of dance and poetry produced by Citie Ballet and Corpus Vocis.

IRENE PAUZER ( Ryerson University, Toronto) returns as Head of Voice and Speech after returning from the Stratford Festival, where she is in her fifth consecutive year as a member of the coaching team in both movement and voice. Last March, Irene was the first voice teacher to have been invited to give a master class for the "On the Move Conference", organized to facilitate graduating students from all the dance programmes in and around Toronto in making the transition into the profession. Irene has also been coaching Claudia Moore’s acclaimed modern dance company Moondance for their upcoming production of The Castle, presented by Soulpepper Theatre.

JEFFREY SIMLETT recently graduated from York University’s MFA Acting programme, where he also earned a diploma in Voice Teaching under the tutelage of David Smukler and Eric Armstrong.  He was an associate faculty member at the 2005 Canadian National Voice Intensive; he then spent the summer teaching at Northwestern University’s National High School Institute, where he has been core Voice/Movement faculty since 2001.  Most recently, Jeffrey has been working as dialogue coach on the ABC/Touchstone miniseries The Untitled History Project, currently shooting in Toronto.

DAVID SMUKLER ( York University, Toronto) led the 20th Anniversary year of Canada's National Voice Intensive and is now preparing for the 2006 program, for more information please visit <http://www.theatre.ubc.ca/vi/>. This past summer he led the first month of coaching on The Untitled History Project for ABC before turning work on the project over to Jeffrey Simlett. Graduates of York’s MFA Actor Training Program with Voice Teaching diploma (developed and taught by David) continue to work and find employment internationally.

KATHY THOMPSON (Pure Voice Power) is a new VASTA member who has been working as a private Voice and Speech coach for 13 years. She recently joined the Continuing Education Faculty at Centennial College ( Toronto), where she has created interactive voice improvement classes for personal growth and to teach business people how to improve presentations. Kathy is also offering three voice classes at Toronto's Learning Annex. Further information and resources may be found on her company website at <http://purevoicepower.com>.

DANIELLE WILSON ( York University, Toronto) is currently apprenticing in the Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre Training at the Stratford Festival of Canada. Following that, she will travel to Brussels, Belgium to teach a series of voice and text workshops to students and teachers at the International School of Brussels. While overseas, she is especially looking forward to taking a side trip to Istanbul (not Constantinople). In January, she will return to York University, where she has been teaching Voice and Speech part-time for the past three years.

MID- ATLANTIC

 BARBARA ADRIAN (Associate Professor at Marymount Manhattan College) Fall of 2004 Barbara coached The Crucible directed by at MMC. She researched and developed a 17th century Puritan dialect for this production. In the spring, she coached There are Crimes and Crimes at MMC.  This past summer Barbara coached As You Like It and Bill Irwin and Mark O'Donnell's adaptation of Moliere's Scapin at the New York Classical Theatre. Additionally, she participated in the “Association of Theatre Movement Educators' Colloquium.”  At the “2005 Breaking Boundaries VASTA Conference” in Glasgow, Barbara taught a workshop entitled “An Integrated Body and Voice Exploration Supported by Rudolph Laban's Theory on Space Harmony.”

DEENA BURKE : (University of Delaware – PTTP) At UD, Deena has taught voice and speech, and coached Much Ado About Nothing, The Play's the Thing and Major Barbara. She coached Yellowman at Everyman's Theater, Hamlet at McCarter, King Lear at Center Stage and Underneath the Lintel at Delaware Theatre Company. In March she taught master classes at Cornish College of the Arts. In the summer she presented at the “Voice Symposium” in Philadelphia, and at The Chautauqua Theater Company she coached All My Sons, Picasso at the Lapine Agile and Measure for Measure. She presented at the VASTA Conference in Glasgow and co-presented a workshop in London.

LINDA M. CARROLL, PHD CCC-SLP (Grabscheid Voice Center, Mount Sinai Medical Center, NY) is co-director of the Phonosurgery and Phonotherapy course at Mount Sinai (Nov 2005), and then goes to Istambul, Turkey as featured speaker for the “3 rd World Voice Congress” (June 2006). Stateside, she is presenting at ASHA’s San Diego convention (Nov 2005) and is featured guest faculty for “Spoleto Symposium” in Charleston (May 2006). This summer, she was guest speaker at the “ Renata Scotto Opera Academy,” speaking on Vocal Health: Surviving a Professional Vocal Career

JANET MADELLE FEINDEL (Associate Professor Voice/Dialect and the Alexander Technique at Carnegie Mellon University) is presenting at the “Alexander Technique International Conference” in Budapest, Hungary and teaching in Bochum, Germany. She is on sabbatical this semester and is dialect/voice/AT coaching on One Flea Spare, at the Point Park Playhouse Rep Company and writing. This summer she presented and performed at the” IMISE” conference in Paris, (her article appears in Lostraniero, published in Milan, Italy) as well as teaching in Krefeld, Germany. Her article “Voice and the Alexander Technique” is published in the “International Congress on the F.M. Alexander Technique Papers” published by STAT, London, England.

MARY HOWLAND (Arts Educational Schools, London, England) Just started a new post as Speech and Dialects tutor down in London after six years in Birmingham. Recent productions as voice coach include Glorious (Birmingham Rep and the Duchess Theatre, London), Wuthering Heights and Twelfth Night( Love and Madness Theatre Company) and Volpone (Present Moment Theatre Company at Wiltons Music Hall, London), for which she is very happy to get commendation for her work in a Time Out Review!

NANCY KREBS (VASTA, AEA, SAG, AFTRA, NARAS) has been busy serving as the dialect/vocal coach for the Olney Theatre Center's production of Morning's at Seven and will do the same for Oliver!  Then it's on to The Cripple at Inishmaan at Everyman Theatre.  She taught two brand new one week experiences for the Lessac Institute this past summer--A One Week Introductory Workshop and a Teacher Training Workshop, both at DePauw University.  The faculty for these inaugural events also included Barry Kur. Earlier in the summer, she was part of the 6 Day Voice Methods Workshop, which featured the Voice training of Lessac, Linklater and Fitzmaurice.

NATALIE MCMANUS (Adjunct Voice and Speech Instructor at George Mason Univ.) in VA;  private practice; Speech-Language Pathologist; Forensics Coach at Northwest High School,  MD; and owner of Puck's Pals, LLC)  Natalie is busy teaching both the introductory and advanced voice and speech classes (Designated Linklater teacher) at George Mason Univ. and coaching all of the department's productions.  She sees private clients, and has signed on four middle schools for her springtime Shakespeare workshops (Puck's Pals).  She has a significant role in an independent film, Past Perfect, due out later this year.  This past year she received several grants for her Puck's Pals program and was awarded a grant through the Univ. of Pittsburgh to conduct a two day voice and speech presentation workshop with their medical research division. 

TRACEY MOORE (Head of Voice & Movement at Florida International University)  In addition to teaching and coaching duties, she is the state audition coordinator for Florida's SETC preliminary auditions, and appeared this past year as Naomi Wallach in A Bad Friend at Gablestage and as the Earth Mother in Menopause, the Musical.  She will be giving a presentation on public speaking at a state-wide “Women's Leadership Conference”, and presenting a workshop entitled “Acting the Song” in November at the “Florida Theatre Conference.”

EVAN MUELLER ( New York University) continues to teach Voice & Speech and acting as an adjunct at New York University's Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions in the Steinhardt School, where he recently was vocal coach on their productions of Parade and Tonight at 8:30. This summer he directed Henry V in collaboration with Vocal Director Susan Schuld. He has just returned from Texas where he played the role of Hanrahan in a special production of Richard Dresser's Below the Belt with Amphibian Productions, and is looking forward to his next project, directing the play Fully Committed later this fall.

LUCILLE SCHUTMAAT-RUBIN , Ph.D. (Professionally Speaking, NYC & Circle in the Square Theatre School) Summer hi-lights at Professionally Speaking include: neutralizing Japanese,  Brazilian, Chinese and Polish accents for performers and business executives; teaching interviewing skills to students, a sales rep and a software technologist; training actors in Drumstruck and  Fools in Love  to avoid vocal misuse;  reducing laryngeal tension in a singer; coaching a lawyer  to be heard and prepping a public speaker for a conference; Also coached presenters at “The Care of the Professional Voice Symposium”.  Lucille was featured in an article on the voice which appeared in The NY Times and Orlando Sentinel which led to a radio interview in Orlando.

LEIGH SMILEY (University of Maryland Department of Theatre, College Park) Fall of 2004 directed TrojanWomen. Appeared as Irene in Anna Bella Eema at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. In 2005 presented at “The Center for Renaissance & Baroque Studies’ Annual Symposium (“The Voice in Action”) and at the “IFTR Conference” (“Vocal Soundscape of Trojan Women”). Traveled to France in August to collaborate with movement specialist and actor Jos Houben with whom she’ll be teaching in France in January 2006. Performed Constance in Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet in November 2005. Her article, “ The Vocal Soundscape of Trojan Women” appeared in the 2005 The Voice and Speech Review.

AMY STOLLER (Freelance) since last report has coached (among others) The Skin Game at the Mint, the Doctor Dolittle national tour starring Tom Hewitt, How Love is Spelt at the Summer Play Festival, Melissa Rauch's Fringe NYC award-winner The Miss Education of Jenna Bush, and The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World (starring Peter Friedman) at the NY Musical Theatre Festival. She has also performed research for Law and Order: SVU and conducted a dialect workshop at Fordham College Lincoln Center. She is currently Dialect Designer and Dramaturge for a new play about Jane Austen.

 ELIZABETH VAN DEN BERG (Assistant Professor, McDaniel College) Upon returning from the VASTA conference immediately implemented dialects on the fly for the Studio Theatre’s production of Caryl Churchill’s A Number, which subsequently received rave reviews in the Washington Post. She also worked with Synetic Theatre for their production of Dracula which played both The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theatre in DC and Roslyn Spectrum in Arlington VA. She directed Quake by Melanie Marnich at McDaniel College, and will be working on Guantanamo: Honor Bound for Freedom for the Studio Theatre when this edition goes to press.

LYNN WATSON (U. Maryland, Baltimore County) developed and presented a workshop at the “VASTA Conference” in Glasgow, Scotland. Michael Barnes and Daydrie Hague were co-presenters for the workshop, “Fitzmaurice Voicework in Vocal Direction/Coaching.” Her article, “The Theatre Vocal Director in the U.S. and England” appeared in the most recent issue of The Voice and Speech Review. She is scheduled to work as voice and dialect specialist for Arena Stage’s production of The Rainmaker, directed by Lisa Peterson.

NEW ENGLAND

NANCY HOUFEK (American Repertory Theatre/Harvard University) was nominated for the Joseph R. Levenson Teaching Prize for excellence in undergraduate teaching at Harvard College.  She published in The Voice Journal ("Oedipus Aiee's: The Use of Ancient Greek on the American Stage”) and hosted a Workshop for certified Fitzmaurice teachers at the A.R.T.  Nancy coached The Provok'd Wife, dir. Mark Wing-Davey, Olly's Prison, dir. Robert Woodruff, DesireUnder the Elms, dir. Janos Szasz, and The Keening, dir. Nicolas Dominguez.  She works with the Kennedy School of Government and the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, as well as consulting with clients in business, medicine, journalism and law.

RUTH ROOTBERG ran a 2-day workshop:  “Moving Voices” last April in Amherst.  She presented in Philadelphia at the Voice Foundation in June.

KAREN RYKER (University of Connecticut-Storrs) is delighted to be working with the new head of performance programs, Dale AJ Rose, and with a terrific new group of MFA acting students.  Looks like a good year!  She just completed coaching Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s world premiere of Jonah’s Dream by William Gibson.  This past summer she did a week-long play reading workshop of Prudence a new play by Carlton and Barbara Molette about the Prudence Crandall.  She thoroughly enjoyed this summer’s VASTA conference in Scotland.

DAVID ALAN STERN ( University of Connecticut and Dialect Accent Specialists) coached Stephen Baldwin for last spring’s “Compulsion” episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.  He returned to the Berkshire Theatre Festival last summer as dialect coach for productions of Equus and The Rat in the Skull, and he is currently working on a production of Stop Kiss for Connecticut Repertory Theatre.  The second edition of “The Speaker’s Voice” and the third edition of “The Sound and Style of American English” (both on CD’s) are in production for release in the late spring.

EAST CENTRAL

CLAUDIA ANDERSON (The Theatre School, DePaul University) coached dialects for The Importance of Being Earnest and Travesties at the Court Theatre, The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer at Next Theatre and A Streetcar Named Desire at Raven Theatre. Interested in the intersection between singing and speaking, this year she wrote a grant to invite Richard Armstrong to work with the Theatre School voice faculty and attended the Banff workshop for the second time. This fall, she is developing her musical skills toward developing a show featuring Celtic music.

LIZ CARLIN-METZ ( Knox College) returned to the USA after directing the Roger Williams University London Theatre and British Culture Studies Program, and recently has been hailed in the Chicago press for her direction of Vitalist Theatre's production of Anna Karenina.  "Intensely Acted"-- Chicago Tribune.  "Delicately beautiful"--Chicago Sun-Times.  "This play should be written in the sky--the best production of Anna Karenina I have ever seen."--Yevgeny Yevtushenko.  "Vivid elegance"--Chicago Reader.  Vitalist Theatre also produced two public poetry performance-readings by the internationally renown Russian filmaker and dissident poet, Yevgeny Yevtushnko.

LINDA GATES (Northwestern University) Dialect Coaching for Stones in His Pockets, at Apple Tree Theatre in Highland Park, IL and The Uneasy Chair by Evan Smith at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Was  Directed by Tina Landau for American Music Theatre Institute at Northwestern University and Aren't We Allfor Remy Bumppo Theatre Company in Chicago.

SANDRA LINDBERG (Associate Professor, School of Theatre Arts, Illinois Wesleyan University) Sandra’s verse play A Breach in Autumn was one of three plays selected by New York’s Judith Shakespeare Co. to receive a staged reading in February 2005. Her article “When Voices Abandon Words” is published in the current issue of the Voice and Speech Review. Currently she is rehearsing Alice in Retreat from Moscow at the Heartland Theatre Company in Bloomington, IL. The production opens in mid-November. She is also voice/text coach for IWU’s current production of Measure for Measure, which opens in mid-November.

TANERA MARSHALL (Assistant Professor of Voice, University of Illinois at Chicago) is in her first semester with UIC, coaching Angels in America and Marisol.  As company member of Chicago's Greasy Joan & Co., she just coached the world premiere of Nilo Cruz and Karin Coonrod's new translation of Lorca's House of Bernarda Alba. She’ll be performing Footfalls in a Beckett Festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art this January.

BETH MCGEE ( Case Western Reserve University) voice and dialect coached The Real Thing at the Cleveland Play House and dialect coached The Secret Garden at the Evans Amphitheater in Cleveland.   She is currently teaching voice in the Case-Cleveland Play House Professional Acting Training Program. 

SUSAN MURRAY MILLER (free lance) Last year Susan was an adjunct professor in Theatre at Roosevelt University in Chicago where she taught Intermediate Acting to Opera Students. She was the British dialect coach for a musical version of Queen Lucia at Lifeline Theater, where she finally met VASTA member Phil Timberlake; he played three major roles in the cast. This fall she is enjoying working in accent reduction with private students, including a young man from Yugoslavia, brand new to Chicago's corporate world.

WENDY MORTIMER ( Ball State University) is currently serving as Coordinator of the Acting Option at Ball State University in addition to her teaching and coaching responsibilities. This past summer she played Lady Macbeth and Olivia in the Illinois Shakespeare Festival's productions of Macbeth and Twelfth Night.

D’ARCY SMITH ( Wright State University) is pleased to join Wright State University in Ohio as a Faculty Associate. Recently he coached Blithe Spirit and is coaching Ragtime.  He holds a graduate diploma in Voice Teaching along with an MFA and BFA in Acting from York University.  He has taught voice at the Toronto Film School and at York University along with coaching various productions.  For thirteen years he trained and studied with David Smukler.  He also served as an associate faculty member for the last two years at Canada’s National Voice Intensive.  He has taught and acted professionally in Toronto for over 7 years.  

PHIL TIMBERLAKE ( Northern Illinois University) played four characters (and sported three accents) in a new musical adaptation, Queen Lucia, at Lifeline Theatre in Chicago last summer. The production garnered 4 “After Dark” Awards including Best Production and Best New Work. And the Original Cast Recording is available on e-Bay!  Phil is the Director of Conferences for VASTA in Chicago next summer.  We will be piggy-backing with ATHE again, details to follow....  

DIANE TIMMERMAN ( Butler University, Assoc. Prof. of Theatre, Designated Linklater teacher) wrote an article for September's American Theatre magazine about Kristin Linklater and Italian director Alessandro Fabrizi’s Metamorphosis project in Stromboli, Italy. Her article on Linklater teacher training appeared in the Spring 2005 issue of College Teaching. Diane utilized her new book, “Spare Scenes: 60 Skeletal Scenes for Acting and Directing”, during a workshop she taught with Kristin in Germany. She is currently coaching I Am My Own Wife at the Phoenix Theatre, where she appeared in Bug this summer. Diane continues to teach workshops at the Indiana Repertory Theatre and at Butler University, where she is directing The Taming of the Shrew.  

TYNE TURNER has taken some time away from the professional theatre to contribute through Americorps to arts integrated urban education. She is currently teaching theatre to urban middle school students at Lincoln Center of the Arts in Milwaukee. It's thrilling and exhausting all at once. She has fit in some coaching and acting at Long Wharf Theatre, Madison Rep, and First Stage Children's Theatre, but for the most part, she has been teaching poverty ridden children how to think through theatre. New Address: 3241 S. 14th St., Milwaukee, WI 53215

JILL WALMSLEY ZAGER ( University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign) Jill coached the dialects for a film, Life Lottery, shot in London this summer. This August Jill coached dialects in Chicago for Drury Lane Water Tower’s Grand Hotel. At U of I this semester she coached Tennessee Williams’ Candles to the Sun and is in the process of coaching the dialects,Nine and Six Degrees of Separation.

SOUTHEASTERN

CYNTHIA BARRETT taught in the “Fitzmaurice Teacher Certification Program” in January, 2005.  The spring and summer she coached The Syringa Tree for the Horizon Theater, A Streetcar Named Desire for Georgia Shakespeare, and continued to build her private coaching practice.  The fall brought playing Calphurnia in Julius Caesar, Audrey in As You Like It and Past in A Christmas Carol for North Carolina Shakespeare Festival.

BRIDGET CONNORS ( Florida Atlantic University) is currently performing in Brooklyn Boy at Gable Stage, and played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth this summer at New Theatre. Other performances this past year included The Memory of Water at Mosaic Theatre Company, Frozen at Gable Stage, and Wait and See at New Theatre. She vocal coached the following productions: The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet (New Theatre) The Frogs,Journey of the 5 th Horse, Hamlet (FAU). Workshop presentations included “Diversity- Just do it” at ACTF, “Learning the IPA” at SETC, and “Shakespeare Scenes” with the Theatre League of South Florida. She can be reached at bconnors@fau.edu

AMANDA DURST , ( Virginia Commonwealth University) is working on her thesis for her MFA in Theatre Pedagogy: Voice and Speech atVirginia Commonwealth University. She was recently hired as an Artist in Residence (Vocal/Dialect Director) at the Barksdale Theatre in Richmond, VA, for their 2005-2006 season. Currently running there is The Drawer Boy. Upcoming productions include Scapino, The Syringa Tree, The Lark, and TheFull Monty. This past August, Amanda led a workshop on screaming (along with Kate Ufema and Kate DeVore) at the VASTA conference in Glasgow. She continues to scream on a regular basis.

RINDA FRYE ( University of Louisville) directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the U of Louisville in the spring of 2005. She coached Moot theMessenger, (Humana Festival) Pure Confidence, (Humana Festival) Dracula, and A Christmas Carol, for the Actors Theatre of Louisville. Last spring she offered two workshops at the Southeast Theatre Conference:  “Voice and Improvisation and ‘The Writer's Voice”. This fall she taught a master class in breath for the Youth Performing Arts School, and for the Actors Theatre Dracula cast she taught a screaming workshop. She serves as the Vice Chair of the Voice and Speech Committee for SETC.
    
DAYDRIE HAGUE ( Auburn University) presented, along with lead presenter Lynn Watson and Michael Barnes, a workshop at the VASTA Conference in Glasgow, Scotland this summer: “Fitzmaurice Voicework for Vocal Direction/Coaching”. She also participated in the “Voice Methods Workshop” at William and Mary College in May with Catherine Fitzmaurice, Louis Colaianni and Nancy Krebs. She is currently coaching Defying Gravity by Jane Anderson and directing The Shape of Things by Neil La Bute.

DEBRA HALE (Assistant Professor, Florida State University, Linklater Designated Teacher) was Voice and Dialect Coach with Eva Barnes on the new musical Zhivago at La Jolla Playhouse. She also was dialect coach on Bad Dates at San Diego Repertory. She presented a workshop at VASTA’s first international conference in Scotland this past summer, “The Breath of Viniyoga and Taoist Healing Sounds.” Her article, “Voice in Ancient Healing was published in VASTA’s 2005 Journal, “Shakespeare Around the Globe.”

LAURA HITT ( West Virginia University) In the past year Laura was certified as an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. This past spring she dialect coached Blue/Orange for Zeitgeist Stage (which won an IRNE for best Boston fringe production) and Homebody/Kabul for Boston Theatre Works. This fall she left her position at Boston Conservatory and her private studio to take a post as Assistant Professor for West Virginia University. A big change, but is loving the green rolling "mountains".

MARINA GILMAN MM, MA CCC-SLP, Certified Feldenkrais Teacher® (The Emory Voice Center, Emory University) has recently moved to Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to her work as a speech pathologist with specialization in the professional voice at The Emory Voice Center, Ms. Gilman will be opening her private practice VOICE MOVEMENT INTEGRATION. She will be offering ” Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement®”classes, “Feldenkrais Functional Integration®” lessons in addition to classes, workshops and private voice and speech lessons incorporating the Feldenkrais Method® into voice work.

BONNIE RAPHAEL spent a fun week this summer at the Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in lovely Mineral Point, Wisconsin, teaching workshops in voice and speech and in Shakespeare. More recently, she was voice and speech coach on an Equity production of The Front Page directed by Gene Saks--cast of 21 and lots of (barely) controlled on stage mayhem. Life is good.

JANET RODGERS (Head of Performance and Voice and Speech, Virginia Commonwealth University) This past August, Janet, along with Marlene Johnson and Allison Hetzel, presented "Archetypes and the Voice" workshop at VASTA in Glasgow. She has five excellent graduate students working with her in Voice and Speech and is recruiting more students for next year. If anyone is interested, please query to <jrodgers@vcu.edu>. Janet just returned from Serbia where she spent a week training with the DAH Theatre. Besides coaching Wait Until Dark, she is working with professional actors exploring Archetypes. She is also organizing a VASTA sponsored week in England, June 9th-16th, 2006 to work with Frankie Armstrong on Archetypes and Voice.

JUDITH SULLIVAN (President of the Communicating Voice, Inc.) in Atlanta, has had her busiest year ever! Primarily she’s been working with Jabil, an international corporation headquartered in St. Petersburg, FL., on presentation skills for the executive officers. She just returned from Livingston, Scotland where she did a six day training for Jabil’s executives at that location. She’ll be returning for another training session in November. In addition, she’s been working in Norfolk, VA. as voice coach for Christian Broadcasting Network. Her work with CNN continues in October with the International Professional Program. She also works regularly with BellSouth, The Weather Channel and the DIY network.

ERICA TOBOLSKI (University of South Carolina) was the Voice, Speech and Dialect coach for the 2005 fall season at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, including All’s Well That End’s Well, The Foreigner and Pippin. She presented, along with colleague Sarah Barker, at the VASTA conference in Glasgow, “Style Meets Substance: Performing Greek Text.” She is currently vocal coaching The Cherry Orchard for Theatre South Carolina and serves as Editor for the VASTA Voice. If you have ideas for articles or would like to submit one for publication in the Voice, please contact her at <tobolski@sc.edu>.

ELIZABETH WILEY (Associate Professor at the College of William & Mary) in Williamsburg, Virginia. February 2005 - directed Alchemy ofDesire/Dead-Man's Blues by Caridad Svich; April 2005 - portrayed Mrs. Hawkins in Treasure Island at Virginia Sta ge Company; June 2005 - hosted the 2005 “Voice Methods Workshop” at the College of William & Mary featuring Louis Colaianni, Catherine Fitzmaurice and Nancy Krebs and coordinated by Amy Sue Fall; September 2005 - dialect coached WMT's A View From the Bridge by Arthur Miller; and November 2005 - will perform alongside her students in WMT's production of Pal Joey in the role of Vera.

SOUTHERN

KATHLEEN CAMPBELL ( Austin College) coached dialects for the local community theatre’s summer production of My Fair Lady. This fall she is directing Yerma at Austin College.

ALLISON HETZEL ( University of Louisiana at Lafayette) had a relaxing summer and enjoyed travelling to Scotland for the VASTA conference where she presented a workshop on “Archetypes” with Janet Rodgers and Marlene Johnson. She is currently cast as the narrator/mother in The Littlest Angel, a new Christmas ballet at UL – Lafayette, and she will be directing The Boys Next Door this spring. She also serves as the Associate Editor for the VASTA Voice.

JIM JOHNSON ( University of Houston) is in the midst of the tenure process. He just completed coaching Ken Ludwig’s Be My Baby, as well as Hapgood at the Alley Theatre. He directed Arms and the Man for the UH mainstage and is currently in rehearsals for a staged reading of Man and Superman for the Shaw festival. He and his wife are rehearsing The Christmas Schooner at Unity Theatre, where he and his wife were recently named Resident Artists. This summer he taught an acting intensive in Estes Park, CO, with actress Connie Cooper and coached the Houston Shakespeare Festival and Spider’s Web at the Alley.

LYNN METRIK ( Ursuline Academy of Dallas) served as the voice/speech coach and appeared as Philamente in The Learned Ladies and Clara in I'm Not Rappaport. In addition, this fall she'll be the voice/speech coach for A Midsummer Night's Dream and the musical director-voice/speech coach for an upcoming local outreach tour of Schoolhouse Rock Live, Jr!

BETTYE ZOLLER SEITZ (Voiceover Professional/Actor/Teacher, Recording Studio Owner in Dallas Audio Producer/Engineer, Simon and Schuster Audio author/producer) was honored in October with a profile in the international magazine, Private Clubs. She was the Announcer in the October Dallas Producer’s Association production, It Came From Dallas. More than 300 attended this tribute to films from the 1960s-1980s. Her voiceover workshops continue to sell out. Students travel from all over the U.S. to learn Ms. Zoller Seitz’s techniques for career success. Information about workshops in 2005 is on her website, < www.voicesvoices.com> . Workshops in 2006 will be presented in Dallas and New York City.

WEST CENTRAL

MICHAEL J. BARNES (Wayne State University) recently joined the faculty of the Hilberry Repertory Theatre graduate acting program at WSU. At Hilberry, he recently coached Sylvia, Julius Caesar and Sweet Bird of Youth. For the WSU undergrad program, he coached Ten November. He presented “Fitzmaurice Voicework in Vocal Direction/Coaching," along with Daydrie Hague and Lynn Watson , as well as "Bridging the Gap between Theatre & Music," with Micha Espinosa. He recently returned from coaching Kelly Preston in the film Angel from Montgomery (working title). The film, Convicted, for which he dialect coached, was released on DVD this month. Finally, he has taken over as Director of Technology/Internet Services for VASTA.

PAUL MEIER ( University of Kansas) led a month-long workshop at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon in June, and presented his paper: “Acting in Dialect: the Cross-Cultural Challenge” at the VASTA conference in Glasgow in August. As Associate Editor for Pedagogy and Coaching for the Voice and Speech Review, he worked with authors Bonnie Raphael, Elizabeth Van Den Berg, Nancy Houfek, Leigh Smiley, Marth Munro, Marie-Heleen Coetzee, Doreen Feitelberg, Lynn Watson, and Robert Barton on their articles in the journal; publishing his own peer-reviewed article “R and its Articulation”, co-authored with Eric Armstrong.

MATT NESMITH (Student Member) is a 3 rd year M.F.A. candidate in theatre (directing) at the University of South Dakota. This past May he graduated with a Master’s of Music, emphasis in voice, from USD. This past year, Matt served as vocal music/ stage director for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Annie Get Your Gun, and is currently working on The Secret Garden at USD. He also directed Proof and will direct The Vagina Monologues this spring. In June Matt attended the Lessac Summer Intensive at the University of Florida. Matt is the new west central regional editor for the VASTA Voice.

SCOTT NICE ( University of Northern Iowa) has just been named the resident voice and movement instructor for Kathryn Gately’s Summer Intensive Training Program <www.thesummerintensive.com>.

CLAUDIA VASQUEZ (Student Member) recently graduated from the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theatre Actor training Program. Since graduating, Vasquez has been working on several shows. In addition, she was recently awarded the Minneapolis Playwright’s Center Jerome Many Voices Fellow.

WESTERN

MARY BAIRD ( Now in Northern CA, the Greater Bay Area ) This summer acted in and did Dialect work for Engaged (before braking my foot). Was vocal director for the Summer Season at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. I will be teaching Voice at ACT in San Francisco and assisting Dennis Krausnick with Acting Shakespeare. Continuing to do private work and also Speaker Training for The Serra Group.

MARY BRENNAN just finished coaching Pinter's Old Times at the El Portal Center for the Arts, in addition to teaching and coaching.  In my psychotherapy practice, I have been using EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for performance anxiety and related issues.

JOANNA CAZDEN gave a workshop on varieties of breath support in different performance styles at the UC San Francisco Voice Conference (October), and will present a paper defending imagery in voice work at the American Speech and Hearing Association convention (November). Also this fall she led a community folk chorus in a non-traditional Yom Kippur program, and she looks forward to spending January 06 in Fitzmaurice Voicework certification training.

MICHAEL COBB is still pinching himself after having spent three months in Moscow, come back to graduate from his training with Nancy Houfek at the A.R.T. Institute, and moved west to succeed Gary Logan as Head of Voice and Speech at the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver. He's also serving as Voice Coach for three productions this Fall in Kent Thompson's inaugural season at Denver Center Theatre Company: Feydeau's AFlea In Her Ear, September Shoes by Jose Cruz Gonzalez, and A Christmas Carol.

LINDA DE VRIES ( California State University, Northridge and The Road Theatre, Los Angeles) is the resident vocal coach for the Road Theatre, which recently received the LA WEEKLY production of the year award for Tom Jacobson's Ouroboros. The Road's current production, Bunbury, on which Dr. de Vries is also dialect coach, is receiving rave reviews and is an LA TIMES critics' pick. It runs through December 4th. Additional work at the University includes dramaturgy on Six By Garcia Lorca, References To Salvador Dali Make Me Hot , and The Emperor Of The Moon. She was also co-adapter and coach on the latter. She coach Dancing At Lughnasa and, currently, Twelfth Night.

PATRICK FRALEY , Private Instructor out of Los Angeles, continues to teach Master Seminars and Classes in L.A., N.Y., and the Bay Area on Voice Over.  His next outing takes him to New York, October 29-30, where he does seminars on Professional Home Recording, and the Business of Voice Over on Saturday, then a Master Class on The Discovery and Use of Personal Style, on Sunday.  Details can be found at <www.greatvoices.com>.

JAN GIST , (Resident Voice, Speech, Dialect Coach/Teacher for The Old Globe/University of San Diego) Jan coached the Old Globe's summer repertory of MacBeth, The Winter's Tale, and The Comedy of Errors. Also coached at the Globe last year: Just Stopped By to SeeThe Man, Himself and Nora, Vincent in Brixton, The Lady With All The Answers. For the USD/MFA program coached Major Barbara, and Richard III. Presented workshop at The Voice Foundation on “Filling The Space With Ease”, and at VASTA conference in Glasgow, with Robert Barry Fleming, on Rotating Repertory Theatre. Soon will be giving a workshop at the Blackfriar's Conference at Shenendoah Shakespeare, on “Shakespeare's Shapely Language.”

JOEL GOLDES dialect coached Justin Chatwin for War of the Worlds, Ryan Phillippe in ADR sessions in a Dutch accent for Five Fingers, African accents on the set of Without a Trace, an Afghan Pashtu accent for Showtime’s Sleeper Cell, and Brazilian accents for Undiscovered, Her Best Move and a commercial. He coached Persian, Polish, Mid-Atlantic and Cambodian dialects for Cornerstone Theater’s A Long Bridge Over Deep Waters and is currently prepping former Indiana Pacer Reggie Miller for his upcoming position as an NBA commentator for the TNT Network. He also coached for an upcoming documentary on the F/X Network.

NANCY E. HARRIS , (M.H., Vocologist & Voice Builder) This year has been very busy and fulfilling! My private studio is full, with 39 students, and I've just completed a 2-week stint of teaching vocal production to the Acting Department at the Denver School of the Arts. I've sung with Opera Colorado in both Julius Caesar and the Grand Opening Gala of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House here in Denver, and am currently in rehearsals as Marmee in Little Women: The Musical (Rodgers & Stevens) at Littleton Town Hall Arts Center running from Nov 11-Jan 1. Next spring brings two more operas and more DSA guest teaching.

DUDLEY KNIGHT has just retired the University of California, Irvine , leaving the voice and speech program in the brilliant hands and minds of Phil Thompson and Cynthia Bassham. In the Fall Mr. Knight will teach at the Yale School of Drama and also at The Actors Center in New York. In January 2006 he will teach in Catherine Fitzmaurice's certification program in LA and then immediately travel to Indiana, where he will be playing Creon and doing the vocal direction on Antigone at Ball State University. Mr. Knight and his wife Marta Whistler and I have moved to Easton, PA .

ARTHUR LESSAC was very pleased to present a three hour-workshop at Santa Monica College in May. He introduced his work at the Lessac Summer Intensive Workshop at the University of Gainesville, Florida and is preparing to both present and speak at the first Lessac Institute Conference in Denver from Jan. 12-16 th. For details: see <www.lessacinstitute.com> and click on the conference link.

MICHAEL LUGERING Michael returns to NYC, January 4 -7 to teach at the Expressive Actor Winter Training Intensive. In February and March 2006, Lugering will spend three weeks in the England teaching the Lugering Method at the Actor's Center in London, Manchester and New Castle and at various drama schools and actor training programs in London. Lugering recently directed TheGamster a new play by Freyda, Thomas with the Nevada Conservatory Theater, Las Vegas' premier professional/regional theater. At long last, Lugering has received a publishing contract his new book “THE EXPRESSIVE ACTOR: Integrated Voice, Movement & Acting Training”. Please visit <www.expressiveactor.org>.

HEATHER LYLE is very excited that her band "The Bluecat Express" new CD "The Spirit of New Orleans" has just been released on Rhombus Records.

ADRIANNE MOORE , ( Utah State University) Adrianne is currently working on two coaching assignments for the Salt Lake Acting Company - I am My Own Wife and The Man from Nebraska. Earlier in the year she coached Polish Joke, also for Salt Lake Acting Company and Talking Wales for the Utah Contemporary Theatre. For the university she just coached Dancing at Lughnasa and is about to start work vocal coaching for Macbeth. She is up for tenure this year and, all going well, will be out on a professional sabbatical during the next academic year. She will spend some of this time working in New Zealand.

KATHRYN MAES , PH.D. is serving as Interim Dean of the College of Arts & Media at the UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT DENVER for the academic year. Kathy hopes to return to teach voice and directing the following year.

URSULA  MEYER (UC San Diego) is back in San Diego working with wonderful graduate students and coaching Arms and the Man and Blood Wedding. I will be working again at Oregon Shakespeare next year on The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde adapted by  David Edgar. My husband James Newcomb is finishing up his one hundred and twenty-five performances in the title role of Richard III at the Oregon Shakespeare as well. Hello to all the lovely Glasgow folk!

ANTONIO OCAMPO-GUZMAN has joined the faculty at Arizona State University in Tempe this fall, after participating in the 1 st International Festival of Makers of Theatre in Athens, Greece in July. At ASU, Antonio teaches performance, voice and directing and in the newly designed MFA programs. He continues to collaborate with Micha Espinosa on bilingual training curriculum, and will be teaching master classes at the Estudio Internacional del Actor in Madrid, Spain this coming January and at the Theatrestudio in Stockholm, Sweden in March.. He is also the newly appointed Associate Membership Director for VASTA.

TOM PROVENZANO (Cal State San Bernardino) One of the great experiences of my life was the Five Week Canadian National Voice Intensive with David Smukler, et al. Now I am in the fortunate position to Bring David and crew to California for the California State University Summer Arts program in Summer 2006. We will do a two week intensive on the Fresno campus. For information you may email <tompro@csusb.edu>.

CRYSTAL ROBBINS co-presented a double workshop at ATHE in San Francisco. She and Laurie Mufson introduced the Lessac Body NRGs through the ATME focus group. Both ladies also co-taught the “Lessac For You” workshop this summer at Mercersburg Academy. Crystal has added a beginning voice class at Santa Monica College and also teaches the Lessac Consonant Orchestra once a week to her daughter’s first grade class! As assistant editor to the Lessac Newsletter, she’s proud to have a column that highlights voice, speech & body work with elementary school-aged children.

BARBARA SELLERS-YOUNG The major news for me is that I have become the interim Executive Director of the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts located at the University of California/Davis.

PHILIP THOMPSON (Associate Professor, UC Irvine) has not sent in an update in a long, long time. Most recently he has coached two shows for South Coast Repertory: Caucasian Chalk Circle, directed by Kate Whoriskey and Joe Penhall’s Dumb Show. He is working now on Farewell to Manzanar for Cornerstone Theatre and Flea in her Ear at UC Irvine.

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