It's all to do with the training. You can do a lot if you're properly trained.
Queen Elizabeth II
winner
2000 OOBR Award
For Personal Contribution to Excellence
in an Off-Off-Broadway Theatrical Production
Production Dialect Coach & Actor (“Eleanor Tilney”)
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Distilled Spirits Theatre
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reviews
Portraying all the subjects, Anna Deavere Smith weaves together sections of these exchanges onstage, smoothly switching from a Texas drawl to a melodious African lilt as she embodies each man and woman with crisp efficiency.
Charles Isherwood, New York Times
on Let Me Down Easy
Anna Deavere Smith’s uncannily accurate vocal/physical impersonations are abundantly evident.
Sandy MacDonald, TheaterMania
on Let Me Down Easy
It was interesting to see someone being me on stage. She got a lot of my mannerisms correct, and it was a really thought-provoking work.
Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper 360° Blog
on Let Me Down Easy
Significant attention and work enables Anna Deavere Smith to fully actualize each one of these individuals. She has studied their voices and expressive techniques. The play is most authentic.
Fred Sokol, Talkin’ Broadway
on Let Me Down Easy
Anna Deavere Smith reproduces speech habits and physical tics so precisely that it is not hard to imagine the details of a face or a hand.
Alex Borinsky, Yale Daily News
on Let Me Down Easy
It’s done in the best possible English accent which, as Karen is from the USA and has just flown in [to England] for the week, is quite amazing. Full marks to voice coach and co-director Amy Stoller.
Philip Horton, Bath Chronicle
on Cheer from Chawton
The performances are among the most winning elements of the production. I usually find fake British accents insufferable, but the entire cast handles the dialect with ease and without pretension.
Larry Kunofsky, NYTheatre.com
on Dangerous Corner
Often irresistible hodgepodge, especially a third act fashion show, supervised by flighty couturier Mr. Windlesham (Kraig Swartz), whose French accent is a hilarious disaster.
David Finkle, TheaterMania
on The Madras House
Kraig Swartz’s witty depiction of the showroom’s fey manager is voiced in Cockney-mixed-with-French accents that has to be heard to be believed.
Michael Sommers, The Star-Ledger
on The Madras House
Special mention for Amy Stoller, credited for dialect design. Though the casts’ accents may not sound pitch-perfect to Louisiana transplants, all the performers sound authentic to an outsider’s ears, especially McNall, who brings to mind the boastful cadence of Big Easy native Harry Connick, Jr.
Andy Smith, TheaterScene.net
on Toys in the Attic
At times Robertson Carricart’s line-readings are so inventive there’s no time to enjoy his spot-on [Northern Irish] accent.
Leonard Jacobs, New York Press
on John Ferguson
[Sets, costumes, lighting, sound], dialect coaching by Amy Stoller, and fight direction by B.H. Barry all contribute to the overall success of the production. Indeed, this Anna Christie is absolutely off-off/indie theatre at its very best … I recommend it highly.
Martin Denton, NYTheatre.com
on Anna Christie
Dialect coach Amy Stoller deserves a deep bow for keeping the whole cast in authentic-sounding accents, even when singing.
Robert Windeler, Back Stage
on The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World
Employing an unwavering Texas accent and a wagging tongue, Melissa Rauch kicks up her legs like a good old girl.
Jason Zinoman, The New York Times
on The Miss Education of Jenna Bush
A special nod also should go to Amy Stoller the dialects coach who did a marvelous job in helping everyone speak in the correct voice of their class or the class in which they are seeking assimilation. This was beautifully apparent when watching the Hornblower clan whose speech became more cultured with each generation and Chloe who cultivated her speech “to pass.”
Arney Rosenblat, TheaterScene.net
on The Skin Game
Ron Sanborn adopted an Irish cadence that so fit O’Neill’s language that the majesty and poetry of betrayal flashed from the small stage.
Glenda Frank, eOneill.com
on Beyond the Horizon
Well acted by an ensemble that has obviously worked hard and to good effect on the distinct (and difficult) Nottinghamshire accent … dialect coach, Amy Stoller.
Bruce Weber, The New York Times
on The Daughter-in-Law
David Finkle, TheaterMania
on The Voysey Inheritance
One can’t be other than awed by Amy Stoller as the dialect coach of this crew. It’s hard to be on stage for two hours and not falter a little putting such strange provincial sounds to English. I didn’t hear a single lapse.
Matthew Paris, XICCARPH: A Magazine of Prejudices
on The Daughter-in-Law
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