National Theatre

In the last few years there has been quite a proliferation of books on voice production.  Written by voice teachers and aimed mainly at theatre practitioners, they range from the easy to follow exercise books to those that reflect upon a lifetime's experience in the theatre.  Here is a brief guide to my favourites.

For actors who trained in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the ‘voice bible' was Clifford Turner's VOICE AND SPEECH IN THE THEATRE and it is still available today in a recently revised version. For those of you who want to work on clear speech and forward placed resonance, it's a must. 

The great teachers and writers of our generation are Cicely Berry and Patsy Rodenburg.  Cicely Berry is the Director of Voice at the Royal Shakespeare Company and her work is focused on the actor's relationship with language; especially but not exclusively, with Shakespeare.   Her books are a delight to read as she not only presents wonderful, playful language exercises for individuals and groups but also shares with us her personal journey with Shakespeare's language.  I particularly recommend THE ACTOR AND THE TEXT and TEXT IN ACTION.  Her most recent publication, FROM WORD TO PLAY, focuses the work for theatre directors.

Patsy Rodenburg was the Head of Voice at the National Theatre for many years after also working at The Royal Shakespeare Company and her books share her extraordinary understanding of our personal relationship with our voice.  I think both actors and non actors would find these books useful as they are relevant to the needs of all professional voice users and in fact to anyone who wants to understand more about their voice.   She presents exercises to develop vocal technique that are practical and direct and then applies this work to play texts of various kinds. These exercises have been developed through her years of work with actors and student actors, working to find authenticity and truth in the voice when performing in different types of play and in different theatres and performance spaces.  THE RIGHT TO SPEAK, THE NEED FOR WORDS and SPEAKING SHAKESPEARE are all wonderful.

Another very practical approach to voice training is found in Michael McCallion's THE VOICE BOOK, a useful book for drama students with an emphasis on the relationship between posture and good voice use.  It also includes some great articulation exercises.

Two more recent publications also have excellent exercises.  They are FINDING YOUR VOICE by Barbara Houseman and VOCAL ARTS WORKBOOK AND DVD by David Carey and Rebecca Clark Carey.  I have a particular fondness for David's work as he was my first teacher. 

There are also some useful aids to learning accents in the National Theatre Bookshop.  HOW TO DO ACCENTS by Jan Haydn Rowles and Edda Sharpe is a very accessible and fun hand book.  It includes a CD of native speakers of the different accents it teaches.  Gillian Lane Plescia has produced an excellent series of CDs (or cassettes) of accents, British and overseas.  These also present native speakers of the accents plus brief notes on particular sounds.  The American accent CDs are particularly good.

My favourite book on singing technique is SINGING AND THE ACTOR by Gillyanne Keyes.  This is a thorough and knowledgeable work which teaches how to produce a free and healthy singing voice in various styles from Broadway Belt to Opera with Pop and Rock in between.

Jeannette Nelson is Head of Voice at the National Theatre. She has worked extensively as a voice and dialect coach in theatre, film and TV.

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