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You can go home again

In the late 1970s, I was studying to be an actor at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Edith Skinner was one of the many remarkable faculty members of the professional actor-training program at that time. Edith’s classes were rigorous and challenging: we learned the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and “narrow transcription,” we investigated the relationship between sound lengths and text clarity, and we had to speak “correctly” at all times. We were drilled in the sounds and rules that made up what she called “Standard Speech for the Stage.” In every production that we rehearsed and performed, we were required to use this Standard. All other speech patterns were considered sub-standard or lowly regional sub-types. I grew up in Chicago. My mother’s folks were Swedish immigrants who had come to the Windy City when she was a child. My dad’s parents were from German and Czech farm families who lived in rural Wisconsin. Although they both were determined not to sound like their linguistic roots, my speech patterns were a true Chicago blend of these influences. I remember not being able to “accurately” pronounce my name in Edith’s class: I simply could not correctly make the vowel “a” to Edith’s satisfaction. My initial written evaluation on file said, “Some regionalisms, but progressing nicely.” With a good ear, lots of drive and hours of practice, I was slowly able to succeed in Edith’s class. However, when I started working as a professional actor, I found that Edith’s formal speech patterns sounded dated. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, more and more plays were being written in specific vernaculars and more and more directors were taking advantage of the multiplicity of actors’ speech patterns. This celebration of diversity has flowered in the intervening decades. I needed to change how I had been trained by Edith to think about speaking. I didn’t want to lose the clarity, precision and richness that she had offered, but I did want to sound like a contemporary American actor. I had also begun teaching speech. It quickly became obvious that my pedagogy had to be much more nuanced than simply drilling correct sounds to eliminate those “bothersome” regional, genealogical, cultural, educational, generational, gendered, professional and social identifiers embedded in our speech patterns. I could hear how each character in every play has his or her specific rhythms, melodies and sound shifts. I began to understand that every dialect or accent is a valuable form. It was also clear to me that the speech patterns that create the inclusive qualities of local or cultural dialects