Voice Acting And Shakespeare – The Not Silent Blog 12/01/20

I love Shakespeare.

It’s a little-known fact that before I became a voice actor, my plan was to be a Shakespearean actor. I even went to school for it. As we all know, life has a funny way of turning your supposedly well-laid plans into, well, something else. So here I am 25 years later as a full-time voice actor.

I have no regrets. I love my vocation, my life, and the people in my village but sometimes I wonder about the road not taken. Would I have made it as a New York actor who focused on Shakespeare? Maybe, maybe not. We’ll never know.

I will say that my training as a stage actor with a concentration in performing Shakespeare has greatly informed my voiceover career. There are too many things to mention so I will give you this one tip…

TIP OF THE WEEK

Watch the Royal Shakespeare Company mini-series “Playing Shakespeare“. You can watch it on YouTube and it is truly amazing.

Its features iconic actors like Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Judi Dench, Ben Kingsley, and David Suchet. Watching their acting process provides a treasure-trove of clues to effectively performing not just Shakespeare but all forms of acting up to and including voice acting.

Even this little nugget from John Barton in the introduction is mind-blowing:

“There are few absolute rules about playing Shakespeare, but many possibilities. “

“Test and question.”

John Barton

The same goes with voice acting. There are few absolute rules to narrating any given bit of text. There is no “perfect take”. Don’t practice. Test and question the way you narrate any given line and allow the magic to happen.

Watch “Playing Shakespeare”. You will be a better voice actor for it!

NEWS AND NOTES

Thursday, December 3rd @1PM EST: Ask Me Anything! Follow the Edge Studio Twitter feed on December 3rd for the Zoom room link.

Wednesday, December 9th @8PM EST: ‘VO How-To: Market Your Demo‘ Have a new demo? Get it heard! In this 90-minute webinar, we will discuss general marketing strategies and some specific tactics to help you determine how to get your voiceover demo into the right hands! It’s $60 to attend but if you have produced your demo with me or graduated from the Mentorship Program you get 50% off! Sign up here.

Thursday, December 10th @8PM EDT: My final Edge Studio Marketing 201 webinar of 2020 will be ‘Thriving in a Smaller Market City’. In this one-hour webinar, we’ll talk about how to build a successful voiceover business without living in a metropolitan area. This webinar caps at 25 attendees and sells out fast. Registration is open now!

Wednesday, December 16th @8:30PM EDT: ‘Success in Online Casting’. In this Edge Studio webinar, I’ll help you understand the online casting site process, how to best utilize these sites, and how to stand out from the competition. Sign up here!

Thursday, December 17th @8PM EDT:  My final Edge Studio Business and Money 201 webinar of 2020 will be ‘Career Goals for the New Year’. In this one-hour webinar, we’ll talk about how to design your voiceover business model, craft a plan, and stick to it. This webinar caps at 25 attendees and sells out fast. Registration is open now!

HAPPY HAPPYS

Happy Chocolates Day and Mousse Day!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Tom Dheere is a voice actor who has narrated thousands of projects for hundreds of clients in over a dozen countries. In addition to voice acting, he is a voiceover business and marketing consultant known as the VOStrategist. When not voicing or talking about voicing, Tom produces the comic book “Agent 1.22”. You can subscribe to his weekly blog and the monthly VO Strategist Learnin’ Stuff Notice here.