The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon

I had a lot of fun coaching top musician and record producer James Poyser for a Suggestion Box request. He was a very good sport! [Segment starts at 1m 20s.]

Dietland

Working with British actress Rowena King to refine her American accent for Marti Noxon’s edgy AMC series was a real pleasure.

Notes from the Field

The HBO film of Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field, directed by Kristi Zea, was an opportunity to revisit and refine work on idiolects we hadn’t touched base on in over a year. Anna and I both strive constantly to honor the real people she portrays by capturing their speech patterns as accurately as possible.

Mozart in the Jungle

I had a blast working with Luke Rampersad as Lennox and Brian d’Arcy James as Beethoven on the Golden Globe winning Mozart in the Jungle, Season 2, Episode 9 “Amusia.” You can stream it via Amazon, and you can watch Luke’s clips right here.

Selma

It was an honor and a pleasure to coach British actress Carmen Ejogo in Coretta Scott King’s idiolect. As you can hear, her own speech pattern is very different!

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical on Broadway

I coached Jessie Mueller in her Tony Award-winning performance as Carole King, and her co-star Jake Epstein, who created the role of Gerry Goffin.

Chains

The Daughter-in-Law (2022)

Ann at Cape May Stage

Kate McCauley Hathaway and I worked closely on the late Gov. Ann Richards’ idiolect.

The Mountains Look Different

The American premiere of Micheál mac Liammóir’s 1948 Irish tragedy, a New York Times Critic’s Pick.

The Price of Thomas Scott

The American premiere of a 1913 play about conscience and its limits, by Elizabeth Baker.

Days to Come

Lillian Hellman’s least-known play was pronounced “gripping” by Ken Marks of  The New Yorker and Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal.

Conflict

New York Times Critic’s Pick, the American premiere of Miles Malleson's political rom-com,  “An immaculately well-made, comprehensively satisfying piece of theater, old-fashioned in style without feeling at all dated … beyond praise.”—Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

Hindle Wakes

Stanley Houghton’s greatest success, in its first New York revival since 1922, “A study of provincial hypocrisy in Vicwardian England that crackles with a biting candor.”—Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

A Guide for the Homesick

A Guide for the Homesick, by Ken Urban at the Huntington Theatre Co., Boston, MA, directed by Colman Domingo. I coached McKinley Belcher III in his Ugandan accent & dialect.

The Suitcase Under the Bed

The fourth production in the Mint’s acclaimed Teresa Deevy project was a New York Times Critic’s Pick at the Beckett, Theatre Row.

The Lucky One

A.A. Milne’s seldom-revived play about sibling rivalry, produced by the Mint at the Beckett Theatre, Theatre Row.

Notes from the Field

A Day by the Sea

New York Times Critic’s Pick; Ten Best of 2016—Wall Street Journal 

Women Without Men 

Five Drama Desk Award nominations, two Lucille Lortel Award nominations, Broadway Alliance Award nominee.

The New Morality

Harold Chapin’s little-known comedy was well received and extended its run twice.

London Wall

Drama Desk & Lucille Lortel Nominee; NY Times & Time Out New York Critics’ Picks
London Wall, for which I did the dialect design and dramaturgy, was the inaugural production on WNET-Thirteen’s program, Theater Close-Up. Sadly it is not available in a streaming version. But I hope you’ll enjoy this teaser from our original production. You’ll see me in the video below, discussing my dramaturgical research for the show. Below that is the teaser for Theater Close-Up.

HBO YoungArts MasterClass with Anna Deavere Smith

I was the speech coach on this documentary, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. While the bulk of my work took place off-screen, you can see me in action on-screen, too. (In this excerpt, however, I’m an electric blue blur in the background at about 1:03.)

See me in action

Australian-born Rocketboom reporter Ella Morton and I have some impromptu fun in How to Talk Like a New Yorker. (The accent is of course exaggerated; subtlety is hard to pull off in a soundbite!)

The Curious Case of the Watson Intelligence

Finalist: Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Winner: John Gassner Award; The Kilroys List. Here actor John Ellison Conlee talks about playing four different Watsons and gives me a shout-out along the way.

A Picture of Autumn

Impressive in every way.—Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal.

Katie Roche

Our third production in the Teresa Deevy Project. Set in the Irish Midlands, near the common border of Counties Westmeath and Offaly.

Mary Broome

Set in a suburb of Manchester, England, with accents of the upper-middle class (genuine and aspirational) and working class.

Temporal Powers

The second production of the Mint’s three-play Teresa Deevy Project. Set in the Irish Midlands, near the border between Counties Westmeath and Offaly.

Agnes Under the Big Top

Agnes Under the Big Top, by Aditi Brennan Kapil, directed by Eric Ting at the Long Wharf in New Haven, CT (rolling world premiere). Accents and dialects: Liberian Standard English, Bulgarian; I also kept an ear on the two varieties of Indian accent for consistency and intelligibility. 

Let Me Down Easy

I coached Anna Deavere Smith in twenty monologues, each created from verbatim excerpts of her interviews with a real person. One show; one and a half hours; twenty different people; twenty unique speech patterns. The show toured in development, enjoyed a successful run in New York at Second Stage, and kicked off its national tour at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Let Me Down Easy was then filmed and shown on PBS as part of “Great Performances.”

Mr. Six Speaks!

I coached English actor Danny Teeson, who played “Mr. Six,” in his first speaking commercials for Six Flags. I had a great time working with him on the shoot, produced by Red Line Films for Ogilvy & Mather.

Here’s another example. What’s the difference? Well, Danny normally sounds like this.

Wife to James Whelan

The first production in our three-production Teresa Deevy Project at the Mint Theater Company. Set in Kilbeggan, County Westmeath, in the Irish midlands.

Cheer from Chawton, a Jane Austen Family Theatrical

Written and performed by Karen Eterovich, this solo show returned for its third engagement at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, England, as 2010’s Festival Finale production.

Flora, an Opera

World premiere of a resurrected ballad opera, Flora, with reconstructed score and additional, new music by American composer Neely Bruce, for Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC. The original Flora was the first opera ever performed in Charleston—and in the USA.
 

Ezekiel’s Revelation

Excerpt from a short film by Katherine Sharp.