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walked back to the N.C.P.A. to join Andrew for a cup of tea and the first workshop session. We entered the N.C.P.A. administration building and were ushered into Vijaya Mehta's office. Ms. Mehta, renowned in India for her dancing, is the N.C.P.A. artistic administrator. She spearheaded the effort to bring Andrew to Mumbai for this British Council-sponsored workshop. Mehta welcomed me warmly as Andrew's colleague. I had been invited to her home for dinner the previous evening and expressed regret that my arrival time caused me to miss the opportunity to dine on authentic Indian fare and see the view from one of Mumbai's first high-rise apartment buildings.

The workshop got underway. Andrew and I walked into a classroom to meet the varied group of seventeen, which included nine actors, a copywriter, an opera singer, a teacher, a drama critic, a former child actor, a director, a dancer, and an architect. Both Andrew and I were dismayed to learn that several leading Mumbai actors hungry for voice work were unable to participate in the workshop owing to other commitments. Most actors in Bombay are not able to earn a living in the theatre and must also hold day jobs. Andrew introduced me, explaining my presence, and from that point on the group generously included me in their circle of exploration and discovery. As a voice and speech specialist, performer and workshop veteran (leader, participant, and observer), I was poised to absorb and record both the content and style of Andrew's training as well as the participants' response.

As a point of departure on the first day Andrew asked the participants to introduce themselves and to talk about their "journey," which broke the ice and gave them the opportunity to articulate a range of perceptions, experiences, hopes and fears. I noted the widely varying accents in the group, ranging from ethnic Indian to "more British than the British." I was touched and amused to recognize that these participants' views of classical text echoed those of North American actors and student actors I have known: intimidation and a belief that the British somehow do it better than anyone else. The overriding reaction was a fear that there exists one, correct way of speaking Shakespeare and that Andrew had come to Mumbai to propound that view. He quickly reassured the group that there are no rules when it comes to Shakespeare, but, rather, basic principles which inform one's own personal response to language. This response cannot be dictated from without but must spring honestly from within. At this juncture the work began in earnest with a few days of relaxation, alignment and breathing, allowing Andrew to lay in place the rapport which would support

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risk-taking exploration throughout the thirteen days of ensemble sessions. The group relaxed, meshed and regaled as Andrew and the participants got to know one another.

He led the group through a sequence of explorations designed to heighten awareness of inhalation and exhalation and to promote "the active use of the outgoing breath." This floor work, breathing sequences on numbered counts, was similar to what I remembered from the Tempe workshop. Once again I recognized in the Mumbai group the breathing apprehensions and misconceptions which plague some North American actors. I was grateful for the repetition myself. Trained in the 70's when emotion and feeling were more the norm than technique, I have found breathing to be a continuing mystery. The group began to make significant discoveries about the habitual tensions and gripping of muscles which impede the free flow of breath and sound. They made adjustments accordingly and worked with new awareness.

The next day Andrew introduced a sequence of sustained sounds supported by active, outgoing breath: whispered consonants, voiced consonants, and finally vowel sounds. The origin of vowel sounds is rooted in the misty past history of rhetoric, an attempt on the part of early human beings to give voice to thought. Vowel sounds are risky terrain for both the speaker and the voice coach; they are personal and emotional; they were acquired at an early age; they specify the speaker's origin; giving the speaker a sense of place and home. Andrew skillfully handled this sensitive transition by asking the group to "send up" their own vowels and to do their vowels "on their own terms." This effectively precluded any stifling imposition of "standard" (read "better") vowel sounds. I witnessed the profoundly liberating effect of this strategy on a group speaking widely divergent forms of English. This was not imitation, but rather a healthy discovery, of a vowel sound's life in the mouth, motivated by curiosity. As I listened, vowel sounds which had been breathy, tentative, labored or false, strengthened, deepened, and resonated, so that a collective vibration of sound filled the room. The workshop had been well and truly launched.

Andrew and I ate most of our meals together, discussing the day's sessions. Consulting my notes, I asked questions which gave rise to lively interchange. I supposed that by this time I had witnessed hundreds of hours of his work, a good vantage point for detecting anything new. I always remarked on exercises I hadn't seen before; he continued to come up with them. This became a running joke between us, his rejoinder "It's not about exercises," prompting my riposte "I KNOW, but I can't help noticing new approaches!" Having just

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