Will introduce students to the Biblical basis for storytelling as an effective way to communicate. Both Old and New Testaments examples will be explored and compared. Oral cultures will be examined. The student will then be able to develop a theology of storytelling that is culturally appropriate.

The class is an all-encompassing exploration of the principles and craft that lead to exceptional acting. Actors engage in a rigorous investigation of text, personalization, character development, and character-specific listening in order to lift language off the page and translate it into the dynamic exchange of energy that stems from human need.

Students tackle modern and contemporary material to discover how technique is adapted to the requirements of varying texts.

Voice I is structured as a progression of exercises/experiences designed to liberate the individual’s natural voice from habitual psychophysical tensions; to connect image, intention, and emotion to breath and sound; to develop the voice’s potential for expression and awaken the actor’s appetite for language; and to promote vocal ease, clarity, power, stamina, range, and sensitivity to impulse.

In Voice II, students focus on meeting the demands of heightened text with rigorous clarity, emotional depth, and generosity of scale. Continued release work on the body, coupled with a larger array of vocal skills and increased imaginative capacity, gives actors access to their most expansive selves in order to serve the characters in classical plays.

This course provides students with tools to mine the printed text for given circumstances, character, objective, and action, noting the opportunities and limitations that the printed play script presents, and promoting the freedom and responsibility of the actor as an interpretive artist.