6 Tips For Auditioning With a Dialect

“The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain,” Eliza Doolittle famously says in “My Fair Lady.” By  the way, she wasn’t the only one who struggled with her accent! Dialects don’t come easy to  everyone. Auditioning with an unfamiliar dialect can really get in your way of landing the role.  When learning a new dialect, here are some tips to keep in mind to help you have a successful  audition.

1. Play the action, not the accent. Don’t let the dialect own the scene. Pay attention to the  character’s social class, age, upbringing, objective, and obstacle. I have worked with actors who  are so focused on the accent that they are not even listening to the reader. If you are not that  skilled, perhaps a hint of the dialect is the way to go. Keep it simple and do what you are trained  to do. Let your skill as an actor help you land the job, not a contrived accent.

2. Don’t watch Harry Potter. Just as you wouldn’t expect a southern belle to sound like a Texas  Ranger, you can’t expect Mary Poppins to sound like Bert. The dialects in most countries are as  diverse as they are in America. For example, the three largest recognizable dialects in England are  Southern English, Midland English, and Northern English. Within those are Cockney, Geordie—as  spoken in Billy Elliot, among many, many others. Do your research. Find out what type of accent is  needed before settling on a generic one.

3. Listen to the casting director’s instructions. If you are adept with the dialect, by all means,  go for it. However, there are times when the casting director does not want you to use a dialect at  all in the audition. Can you imagine listening to botched accents all day long? Always check with  your agent or manager. When all else fails, don’t be afraid to ask the casting director before you  begin.

4. Work with a coach. Whether you work with an acting coach or speech and dialect coach, getting  help from someone trained in this area can make all the difference in your audition. Dialects are  not only about pronunciation but also about cadence, phrasing, inflection, and pitch. Sometimes in  comedy, the words are not funny until the dialect is in place. Be careful of over-coaching,  however. When in doubt re-read tip number one!

5. Don’t wing it. Dialects are part of the basic training of every good actor. Just like your  monologues and songs, have your dialects in your repertoire ready to go at any moment. Take the  time well before opportunity knocks to learn a few of the more popular dialects such as Standard  British, Cockney, Irish, Australian, Southern, and Brooklyn. Practice on trains, planes, and  automobiles. Just think how much fun you can have while working on your craft.

6. Other good resources. There are many books and CDs available to help you learn dialects on your  own. Some authors to research are Edda Sharpe, Jan Haydn Rowles, Robert Blumenfeld, Paul Meier, and  Jerry Blunt. Other great resources are VASTA (Voice and Speech Trainers Association) and IDEA  Dialects (International Dialects of English Archive) where you can find a real person speaking with  the dialect or accent you are looking for.

For some added inspiration, check out Meryl Streep’s many accomplished accents: British in “The  French Lieutenant’s Woman,” Polish in “Sophie’s Choice,” Danish in “Out of Africa,” Irish-American  in “Ironweed,” Australian in “A Cry in the Dark,” Italian “The Bridges of Madison County,” Irish in  “Dancing at Lughnasa,” Upper-Midwest in “A Prairie Home Companion,” Bronx in “Doubt,” Julia Child  in “Julie & Julia,” and English in “The Iron Lady.” Have fun as you simply watch, listen, and learn!

Sit With The Audience – They’re The Final Ingredient

This is a fabulous interview with a director who has a habit of viewing his movies along with an audience.

When working with actors for the stage,  I always tell my students the audience is the final ingredient. You won’t know how your choices will play out until you see how the audience reacts. Are they laughing at the punch lines? Is your timing working? If you are not getting laughs where you expect them you may have to make some adjustments.

When I direct I too sit in the audience for many performances and observe the audience members. Are they bored, delighted, surprised, sad, etc? I learn a lot about what is working from a director’s point of view.

Enjoy the article:

Why Alan Berliner Watches His Film With An Audience Every Chance He Gets

Edwin Honig and Alan Berliner in ‘First Cousin Once Removed’ HBO
In his introduction to Alan Berliner’s film, “First Cousin Once Removed,” which screened as part of the “Documentary Short List” program recently at DOC NYC, the festival’s Artistic Director Thom Powers mentioned that most filmmakers he knows stop watching their films with audiences after the first few screenings, but Berliner is the exception. Berliner, whose experimental documentary films “Wide Awake,” “The Sweetest Sound,” “Nobody’s Business,” “Intimate Stranger” and “The Family Album” have been broadcast and screened at festivals all around the world, makes a point of watching his films along with an audience almost every chance he gets.

“First Cousin Once Removed,” which Eric Kohn called “equal parts psychological mystery and lyrical treatise on the passage of time,” chronicles the late Edwin Honig, a poet and professor (as well as a cousin of Berliner’s) and his life with Alzheimers. Below, Berliner explains why he relishes the opportunity to watch his films with an audience.

“First Cousin Once Removed” is currently available for viewing on HBO, HBO On Demand and HBO Go. It will also be shown on Sunday, December 22nd at 6:30 p.m. and Wednesday, December 25th at 8:30 p.m. at the Howard Gilman Theatre in the Elinor Bunim Monroe Film Center at Lincoln Center in New York City, as part of their series, “For Your Consideration: Documentary Oscar Hopefuls.” Alan Berliner will sit through both screenings.

I first watched “First Cousin” with a public audience at its premiere at the New York Film Festival fourteen months ago. Since then, I’ve spent the past year traveling both here and abroad, watching it with audiences in ornate movie palaces, commercial multiplexes, museum auditoriums, art galleries, lecture halls, classrooms, even barns — whether full, half full, or, even on occasion, empty-ish. By now I’ve seen it in the company of audiences almost 50 times.

For me, watching my films along with the audience has always been a necessity — an intrinsic part of my understanding of what it means to be a filmmaker. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always seized the opportunity to be a fly on the wall inside the real-life laboratory for which my film was intended: a group of perfect strangers intimately gathered in a dark room to watch something I’ve just spent years of my life putting together.

Before I go any further, let me get the boredom question out of the way. I can certainly attest to the relentless grind of repeated viewings day after day after day, marching to the crazy rhythms and shifting pressures of deadlines that controlled my life throughout the process of making the film. Not always fun, for sure. Who knows how many hundreds of times I’ve actually seen my film (in all its myriad evolving forms) over the course of its editorial gestation? Exhausting yes, but not boring. After all that, now that it’s ready to be shown publicly, what could I possibly still learn by watching it that I don’t already know?

I’ve always believed that finishing a film is just “the beginning” of the end of my filmmaking process. I say “the beginning of the end,” because this new (and exciting) phase in the life of the film initiates a critically important part of my creative process — the chance to observe audience response as a way of gleaning insights both about my film and about filmmaking; things I’ll take with me when it’s time to make the next one.

“First Cousin Once Removed,” made with the support of HBO, was the most difficult project I’ve ever undertaken. It’s an intimate portrait of the poet, translator, critic, and founder of the Creative Writing Program at Brown University, Edwin Honig, who was my cousin, friend and mentor. It’s a chronicle of his journey through the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease, a meditation on the profound role that memory plays in all of our lives, and a stark reminder about the fragility of being human.

As with my earlier work, I am the film’s producer, director, and editor. I’m also in the film as a character; there’s footage of me and the sound of my voice in conversation with Edwin woven throughout. If you add the layers of my personal history and family relationship with Edwin (to which you could also add “biographer”), you might easily see how all of my responsibilities and roles became inextricably intertwined and inseparable while making the film. Watching the film with an audience (while also watching the audience watch the film) allows me to finally sit back and quietly reexamine my process with the freedom and perspective of critical distance.

Audiences communicate in many ways — through laughter, through tears, even in the varied intensities of their shared silence. Over the years I’ve learned how to decode the language they’re speaking — whispers, giggles, guffaws, gasps, seat rustling, walkouts, cellphone sightings, even the volume, intensity and rhythm of their applause — and incorporate that feedback into a better understanding of the trail of decisions that went into making the film.

Sometimes it’s something relatively simple. For instance, in the midst of a conversation about death, I ask Edwin if he’s “afraid of time.” He responds by saying, “No. Time is my friend,” which is said over the image of a small, hand-painted wooden mermaid, hanging by a thin piece of string in Edwin’s apartment, slowly turning in mid-air. The delicate delivery of Edwin’s phrase moved me to hold that shot on screen for a few extra beats in silence, as the mermaid continues her serene turn across the frame. Watching it with an audience made me realize that was a good decision. I could feel their visceral grip of that silence as they watched. To be honest, it also made me wish I’d held that shot even longer.

Over time I’ve discovered that certain lines of dialogue will always elicit laughter, while I continue to remain at a loss as to why no one ever laughs at other parts of our conversation, particularly when they constantly made me smile in the editing room. (Maybe the audience is actually smiling and I just haven’t noticed.) On another level, I also get to see how each audience relates to Edwin himself — how and in what ways they respond to his wit, his spirit, the extraordinary topography of his face, and most importantly, whether they can feel the deep and abiding love and respect I hold for him throughout the film.

Given the personal nature of “First Cousin Once Removed,” watching it with different audiences around the world has helped me understand the possibilities (and the limitations) of language and translation. Each screening is also a test of my assumptions about the ways in which personal storytelling transcends its detail and specificity and (hopefully) transforms into a kind of universal truth that touches each viewer — an aspiration that is at the foundation of all the work I do.

Once the credits are over and the house lights go on, I can get up out of my seat with a better sense of how that particular audience experienced my film on that particular day. The fact that it’s also fresh in my mind energizes me to make sure that our post-screening conversation is a stimulating and meaningful extension of the film. The very act of thinking out loud in real time, being able to contextualize, synthesize and annotate my process, and ultimately, convey the essence of my mission as a filmmaker, is yet another opportunity for self-reflection and growth.

It usually takes me about a year to finally reach “the end of the end” for each film I make. After that I’m ready to begin a new project. To begin the beginning of a new project, I should say…

When Do Child Actors Need To Be Coached?

I was a panelist at a SAG-AFTRA young actors symposium the other day when a parent asked, “How do I know when my child needs coaching?” Do you find yourself running to your child’s coach every time you get a call from the agent or manager? Here are some guidelines to help you determine when to call in the specialist and when to leave things alone.

1. How difficult is the material? It may be an emotional scene where the actor has to cry or get angry. Maybe the character is blind or has a disability. Is it a period piece? Is a dialect required? Sketch comedy and improv skills might be necessary. Your child would benefit by working with a coach for any of these reasons! However, if the audition involves one or two lines and the performer just needs to be natural and be themselves, maybe you should save your money this time.

2. Does your child need a boost of confidence? In addition to working on skills with the young actor, a good coach is also a cheerleader and one of your child’s biggest fans. Mom and Dad, I’m sure you are rooting for your child, but according to my own child, what I say doesn’t count because, according to her, “Parents always say nice things.“ Sound like any child you know?

3. Has it been a while since your child got a callback? Perhaps his or her skills are rusty. Now may be a good time to check in with a coach. Brushing up on improvisation, sense memory, and audition technique may be just what is needed to put your young actor back on the map.

4. Did the casting director request that you NOT coach your child? This would be a really good time to listen. Don’t have them coached - by anyone!!!! If you don’t heed this warning you are not only jeopardizing your child’s chance for success, but you are putting him or her in the very awkward position of having to lie if asked about it.

As an acting coach, it is my passion and my livelihood to work with young performers. As much as I would love to coach your child, there may truly be times when it is best to let things be. Ask your child if he or she feels confident with the material or if working with a coach would give them the upper hand. We can sometimes underestimate our children. They may know what is best this time. Just ask!

Ask Denise: Do You Have Any Book Recommendations?

Q: Can you recommend any scene and monologue books for my child?

A: Of course! Here’s a great list:

• Great Scenes and Monologues for Children Ages 7-14; edited by Craig Slaight and Jack Sharrar

• Great Monologues for Young Actors; edited by Craig Slaight & Jack Sharrar

• Great Scenes for Young Actors from the Stage; edited by Craig Slaight & Jack Sharrar

• Childsplay; edited by Kerry Muir

• Monologues for Young Actors; by Lorraine Cohen

• Scenes for Young Actors; Edited by Lorraine Cohen

• Monologues for Young Actors; edited by Robert Emerson & Jane Grumbach

• The Young Actors Workbook; by Judith Roberts Seto

• Scenes That Happen and More Scenes That Happen; by Mary Krell-Oishi

I’d also like to recommend some other books that have been very effective for my students:

•  Audition ; by Michael Shurtleff

•  Meisner On Acting ; by Sanfore Meisner