MSUM Theatre Arts Alum Offers Free Workshop
Free Workshop on Knight-Thompson Speechwork – Saturday, October 13th, 1-3pm
Actors and other professional voice users need to speak clearly and expressively in order to communicate the ideas and emotions of their characters – and themselves. Whatever the native accent of the speaker, this easy communication to the listener must always happen in every moment, on stage, in film or television, in real life too.
Knight-Thompson Speechwork is a unique approach to speech skills for actors and other professional voice users that develops clear intelligibility, flexible adaptability, and expressive variety. Created by master teachers Dudley Knight (Professor Emeritus of Drama at the University of California, Irvine, with a forty-year career as voice, speech and dialect teacher and voice director for professional theater) and Philip Thompson (Associate Professor of Drama at the University of California, Irvine, and head of the MFA program in Acting), this method is based upon practical exploration of the physical actions of speech – all of the actions, all of the articulators, all of the variations. By learning this gamut of sounds not just by ear, but by the feel of the actions required to produce them, students develop the skills to access any accent or style of speech that may be required.
Local actor and dialect coach Joseph Papke was one of only nine teachers to complete the inaugural teachers’ certification course in Knight-Thompson Speechwork this past summer in New York City. On Saturday, October 13th from 1-3pm, he will present a free introductory workshop at the Washburn Library (5244 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls). Participation will be limited to twenty people, age 16 and up. All participants must pre-register by sending an email to workshops@josephpapke.com. For more information, please visit www.josephpapke.com.
Joseph Papke is a fiscal year 2012 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.