Home Overview Calendar Teachers/Locations Articles Links Fitzmaurice Voicework

Master Teachers

PAGE CONTENTS MASTER TEACHERS   "[Catherine] is a theatre artist and teacher of the very highest rank. She has provided practical help and real expressive power to so many fine actors. She is a warm, gentle, compassionate teacher with a sense of humor, devotion to her charges, and passion for her work." -- Frank Galati, Tony Award-winning Director, Associate Director, Goodman Theatre     MASTER TEACHERS Master Teachers have up to 30 years experience teaching Fitzmaurice Voicework after working extensively with Catherine Fitzmaurice. Each of these teachers brings a unique perspective to the work, yet maintains a clear conceptual and practical mastery of the aims and methods outlined by Catherine. Many Master and Associate Teachers of Fitzmaurice Voicework are also members of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association, and their extended bio's may be found on VASTA's web pages at www.vasta.org. PAUL BACKER Master teacher   Senior Lecturer, Co-Director of Performance University of Southern California School of Theatre Drama Center DRC Los Angeles CA 90089 tel: 213-740-9449 fax: 213-740-8888 e: pbacker@usc.edu web: http://theatre.usc.edu/faculty/backer_000.html Paul Backer is Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Ojai Shakespeare Festival in California. He has worked there and elsewhere as actor, director, teacher, and producer. Besides voice, he has previously taught acting, movement, and theatre history at California State University-Northridge, UC-Santa Barbara, Los Angeles City College Theatre Academy, Santa Monica College, and the Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts. He is an active member and past Executive Committee member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America, and he has recently completed his coursework and qualifying exams towards his PhD at the University of California-Irvine. He is now ABD, working on a dissertation on Shakespeare and Daoism. PhD (ABD) University of California- Irvine; MA California State University-Northridge; BA UCLA. NANCY HOUFEK Master teacher   Head of Voice & Speech American Repertory Theatre/ Institute for Advanced Theatre Training Harvard University Loeb Drama Center 64 Brattle St. Cambridge MA 02138 tel: 617-495-2668 e: nancy_houfek@harvard.edu web: http://www.amrep.org/framesets/faculty.html Nancy Houfek trains teachers of voice, speech, text, and dialects in A.R.T.'s MFA in Voice program. She also teaches voice, speech, text, and dialects for the graduate level acting students of Harvard's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, and coaches the A.R.T. professional company. Nancy worked at the American Conservatory Theatre as actor, teacher, director, and coach for nearly a decade. She has appeared in over 100 plays and musicals nationwide, and directed both professional and academic productions. She has served on the faculties of the University of Washington, Southern Methodist University, the Drama Studio of London, and the University of Minnesota where she was Head of Actor Training. She has served as a consultant to television journalists, talk show personalities, and other professional voice users, and gives presentations for the Kennedy School of Government and the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard, for whom she made a film, The Act of Teaching, for their educational series. MFA American Conservatory Theatre; BA Stanford University. LYNNE INNERST Master teacher   Senior Lecturer Temple University Department of Theatre 1301 W. Norris Street Philadelphia PA 19122 tel: 215-204-8652 fax: 215-204-8566 e: dirtpatchranch@yahoo.com   Lynne Innerst has taught at CalState-Long Beach, the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park College, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, University of New Mexico, University of Akron, and Southern Illinois University. She has worked as a professional actress for over twenty years. MFA University of Southern California; BFA University of New Mexico-Albuquerque. DUDLEY KNIGHT Master teacher   Visiting Faculty Temple University Department of Theatre 1301 W. Norris Street Philadelphia PA 19122 & Easton PA e: dknight@uci.edu Dudley Knight has retired from the University of California at Irvine, where he taught for twenty years, and is pursuing his acting career again, as well as guest teaching at Yale School of Drama, the Actors Center in New York City, the University of Connecticut-Storrs, and currently at Temple University. He has coached voice, text, and dialects at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Los Angeles Theatre Center, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, American Conservatory Theatre, LA Actors Theatre, and Theatre West. He has taught voice, speech, and acting at A.C.T., U.S.C., CalArts, Los Angeles City College Theatre Academy, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts/West, and CalState-Northridge, and in London and Dublin. He has studied voice with Kristin Linklater and Catherine Fitzmaurice. His article in THE VOCAL VISION, "Standard Speech: The Ongoing Debate," offers a new paradigm for speech work based on physical flexibility and clarity rather than correctness. He offers his own workshops in his Knight Speechwork with colleague Phil Thompson. His many articles are referenced in articles. He recently performed as Creon in Antigone at Ball State University, and at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. MFA Yale School of Drama; BA Haverford College. SAUL KOTZUBEI Master teacher           Los Angeles CA tel: 323-965-8333 e: voicecoachLA@aol.com web: www.voicecoachLA.com Saul Kotzubei teaches workshops, ongoing voice classes, and private clients in Los Angeles. He is the lead trainer for the two-year Fitzmaurice Voicework Teacher Certification Program. A performer with a masters degree in Buddhist Studies, extensive acting training, and a year studying clown in London with Phillippe Gaullier, Saul has taught Fitzmaurice Voicework at the Actors Center in New York, for NYU's BFA program at CAP 21, and in workshops in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, San Francisco, as well as in London, Paris, and Santiago Chile. In addition to his voice teaching, Saul has done a wide range of communication-related teaching and consulting: he has, for example, taught theatre games to Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, consulted for the municipal government of Prague in their transition to democracy, done conflict resolution at a U.S. Zen center, taught presentation skills for business executives in Chile, and taught creativity workshops in Russia. He performed at El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood in the critically acclaimed West Coast premiere of Lanford Wilson's Sympathetic Magic. His articles on the voice are published online for the acting community in Los Angeles. MA Columbia University; BA Wesleyan University. JOAN MELTON Master teacher         New York City tel: 917-991-5199 e: joan.melton@joanmelton.com web: www.onevoicebook.com Dr. Joan Melton initiated and developed the Voice/Movement Program for the Department of Theatre and Dance at California State University, Fullerton (1996 – 2007). She currently lives and works in New York City, while conducting medically-based voice/movement research both in the UK and Australia. She is the author of Singing in Musical Theatre: The Training of Singers and Actors (Allworth 2007), and, with Kenneth Tom, of ONE VOICE: Integrating Singing Technique and Theatre Voice Training (Heinemann 2003). Joan previously taught at the University of California Irvine, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Pasadena, and at Los Angeles City College Theatre Academy. She has taught workshops on “Integrating Singing Techniques and Theatre Voice Training” and/or Fitzmaurice Voicework at the National Association of Teachers of Singing conference, San Diego, 5th International Voice Symposium, Salzburg, Austria, PEVOC IV, Stockholm, Sweden, Voice Symposia of Australia in Brisbane and Sydney, Region VIII Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festivals, and at the Voice Foundation’s Symposia in Philadelphia. She has taught at the Central School of Speech and Drama, London, at Bird College, Kent, England, at LITES Drama Summer School, Dublin, Ireland, at the Academy of the Arts and at Queensland Conservatorium, Brisbane, Australia, at Western Australian Academy of the Arts, Perth, and at Sydney Conservatorium, Sydney. In addition, she has taught at Toi Whakaari National Drama School of New Zealand, in Wellington, and at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Arts, Christchurch, NZ. Many of her articles can be accessed in articles. PhD University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; MM and BM University of Mississippi, Oxford MS; Advanced Diploma in Voice Studies Central School of Speech and Drama, London. DONNA SNOW Master teacher   Associate Professor, Head of Graduate and Undergraduate Acting Temple University Department of Theatre 1301 W. Norris Street Philadelphia PA 19122 tel: 215-204-8652 fax: 215-204-8566 e: dsnow@unix.temple.edu web: www.temple.edu/sct/contact/directory.html Donna Snow has served several terms as Chair of the Theatre Department at Temple University, where she teaches and directs. She has taught at Circle in the Square, A.C.T., and the Institute for Renaissance and Baroque Studies. She worked as a professional actress for 15 years at such theatres as the Arena Stage, A.C.T., Long Wharf Theatre, Stage West, Studio Arena, Syracuse Stage, GeVa, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, the Walnut Street Theatre, the Folger, St. Louis Rep, Seattle Rep, and Off-Broadway. MFA American Conservatory Theatre; BA University of Washington. PHIL THOMPSON Master teacher   Associate Professor Head of Acting University of California-Irvine Department of Drama Drama 249 Irvine CA 92697 tel: 949-824-9440 fax: 949-824-3475 e: pthompso@uci.edu web: http://drama.arts.uci.edu/faculty/thompson.html Phil Thompson has studied with Dudley Knight, Robert Cohen, and Jerzy Grotowski, among others. He taught at the Ohio State University for nine years and served for three years as the head of the MFA in Acting program. He works as a voice/dialect coach for UCI as well as for professional productions at such theatres as South Coast Repertory, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Madison Repertory Theatre, and for the last six years at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. He has acted with the Grove and Illinois Shakespeare Festivals. He serves currently on the board of URTA, and is President of VASTA. MFA University of California-Irvine; BA University of Iowa.  Founder          Master Teachers           Associate Teachers             Assistant Teachers           All Teachers Home Overview Calendar Teachers/Locations Articles Links FITZMAURICE VOICEWORK is a Registered Trademark owned by Catherine Fitzmaurice