ACCENT REDUCTION - Part 1: 6 Week Class with Susan Finch, Speech and Voice Teacher, Professional Actress, Acting Teacher and Coach

Wednesday, February 5, 2020, 6:30pm ET / 3:30pm PT

Our Accent Reduction class is designed for both the actor and non-actor whose first language is not English or who is bilingual but has a strong foreign native language accent or the actor who has a heavy regionalism. You'll work with the amazing Susan Finch who will help you to isolate and identify English sounds that are not in your native language and you'll practice producing these sounds in a natural, fluid manner, minimizing your native accents or regionalism.

You'll also practice breathing techniques which will support clearer pronunciation and articulation. Susan will also introduce The International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA) which will be used to correct habitual speech problems.

From there you'll transition to practicing storytelling and delivering monologues, concentrating on clear speech with minimal native language pronunciation issues, integrating proper phrasing, inflection and rhythm.

All class participants will receive a copy of "Speak With Distinction" by Edith Skinner which Susan will use and refer to in your class.

Susan asks that you please bring these tools with you to every class:

-Textbook: SPEAK WITH DISTINCTION -A small mirror -Sharpened pencils with eraser -Paper

PLEASE NOTE: Susan requests that you come in early for each class, prepared and ready to start at 6:30pm.

"This class is amazing! Susan has a really fine ear and gives super specific adjustments uniquely catered to each individual in her class.  She made learning the phonetic alphabet fun! I'm so grateful for the wealth of experience and care she brings to her passion." -Maggie Benedict

Susan Finch

SUSAN FINCH — Voice and Dialect Coach for Film and Theater

Broadway: Girl from the North Country, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. 

O?-Broadway and regional: The Vagrant Trilogy, The Visitor, Coal Country (The Public Theater), Our Lady of 121st Street (Signature Theatre), India Pale Ale (MTC), A Christmas Carol, Antony and Cleopatra (McCarter Theatre), Murder on the Orient Express (Rep Theatre of Delaware), My Fair Lady (National Tour, dir. Bartlett Sher).

Additional coaching: Red Bull Theater, The Women’s Project, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, Shakespeare on the Sound.

Film dialects: Triumph of the Will, Clickbait, and Warpath

She co-leads the communication course Speak Up! with Ariel Kane in NYC. She has coached administration and sta? at the New York City Department of Education and regularly presents seminars for the Department of Transportation and NYC. She created the speech department at The Atlantic Theater School (NYU), where she served as Department Head for 30 years. She has taught at The Juilliard School, Actors Connection, Playwrights Horizons, Marymount Manhattan College, and The American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Awards and honors: Recipient of the Drama League Award and the Edith Skinner Prize for speech; Voice Fellow at The Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab. She is a proud alumna of John Houseman’s The Acting Company. Training: The Juilliard School (Drama Division).