The Accent Gym is an ongoing small-group class and support for your dialect work. We meet weekly for accent instruction and practice, as well as group discussion. We cover 1-2 specific accents per month, in addition to a related general theme or skillset.

Topics may include:

  • Crash-course in IPA (phonetic alphabet) and diacritics

  • Parisian French vs. West African, French vs. German

  • NYC vs. South Boston, doing love scenes in NYC accents

  • Mastering the “broad a” [a] vowel and Mid-Atlantic

  • Is a Russian accent really different from Polish when speaking English?

  • how to do a “light” accent

  • gender and the voice

  • preparing an accent on one-hour’s notice

  • how to analyze and replicate the sound of a real person

  • voicing characters of a different ethnicity in audiobooks

  • collaborating with a director who doesn’t know what they want

  • the neuroscience of dialect work

  • why you hold you breath when you have to do an accent and how to fix it

  • etc. etc. etc. 

Basically a smorgasbord of everything I know and am learning.

You will:

  • receive recordings of each class

  • receive supplementary dialect materials, including audio recordings for practice

  • become far more proficient with a variety of US and world accents and dialects

  • train your ear and become a better listener

  • develop a confident vocabulary for collaboration with authors and directors

  • practice, practice, practice your accent work on a variety of texts

  • get practical tips and feedback from other actors

  • laugh, hopefully a lot — this work should feel good and be fun

As part of your monthly membership, you may also send me one sound file (up to 10 min) of a dialect you’re working on and receive my audio feedback. This could be audition sides, an audiobook excerpt, or simply something you’re working out on. (24-hour turnaround, just like a good Covid test.)