production WORK

The role of the voice person as part of the creative team of a production tends to be underrated on this side of the Atlantic. Directors will routinely bring in movement specialists while remaining oblivious to what a voice person can do. 

A production I saw recently, very successful in most respects, typified this kind of need.  The show was in a large theatre with a notoriously difficult acoustic. Though it had been running for weeks there were serious audibility problems affecting the majority – though not all – of the cast. The more I watched, the more it became clear that the problem was not with audibility in a narrow sense, but with the company’s relationship with the text. The specific weight and cadence of the author’s language had not been found with sufficient exactness, and this was disabling the speech.

What a voice person attached to a production can do – mainly by providing brief but preferably regular, precisely tailored warm-ups at the start of rehearsals - is …

Enhance ensemble by unifying the voice and speech style of the company.

Help actors to find the value of their words and to connect to them with greater depth and authenticity – that is, finding the meeting point between the actor’s voice and the “voice” of the author and character. We have all seen productions rich in every respect but that the speech has been mundane – all subtext and no text

Help find the verbal rhythm, which of course then feeds into the dramatic rhythm.

“… adds a new dimension to every theatre production he is involved in”
Andrew Visnevski