We are pleased to announce the return of the Voice and Speech Class with Tessa Auberjonois in March 2025! The class is structured into a four-class, two-week format that will give our students a strong vocal foundation.
Voice and Speech production is a technique that takes time to learn and integrate. Our everyday, habitual patterns of breathing and speaking tend to be very sensitive to factors such as nerves and personal inhibitions.
Over time and with practice, we can use vocal technique to find awareness and learn to use breath, voice, and articulation in a way that can be relied upon to communicate the versatile character choices we make as actors instead of being trapped by the limitations of our own habitual vocal patterns.
This process is akin to building new muscles at the gym or learning to play an instrument. It takes time and practice before results can be felt and utilized effectively. Therefore, each session builds upon the last as students integrate the technique into new and specific use of the voice, body, and speech. This twice-weekly foundation course will teach a voice and speech warm-up, give you an excellent understanding of the mechanics of vocal production, as well as how to explore text vocally.
This class will primarily teach the technique developed by Kristin Linklater, as described in her book Freeing the Natural Voice, and will consist of very active exercise work.
Students should be prepared to have a monologue chosen to use as text for this class.
Workshop Description: VOICE PRODUCTION
Lesson plan (subject to change)
Class 1: Solidifying and reviewing Body Work, Breath awareness, Touch of sound, and opening the Channel
Class 2: Exploring the resonators – chest, mouth, and teeth, and connecting the voice to the body
Class 3: Breathing gym, Physical sound exploration
Class 4: Integrating the Upper resonators – Nasal, Mask, Head, Finding unusual organic choices for text
For a long while now, Berg and the instructors here at the studio have worried about a serious lack of vocal training among our students. This lack of training is not just about volume, to be sure. Without the ability to fully utilize their voice, no actor can be counted on to express themselves in the dynamic, creative way our industry demands.
Indeed, the purpose of vocal training, a standard element of all conservatory acting programs throughout the world, is to free the actor’s habitual patterns of tension. This allows the vocal instrument to express character via the actor’s imagination and engage the listener with language written by another but spoken as our own.
Instructor:
Tessa Auberjonois started her voice-over career soon after graduating from the Yale School of Drama and has consistently worked as a voice-over artist while also performing on stage and screen. In 2017 Tessa was nominated for a Behind the Voice Actors Award for best-featured actress in a television series. She is trained in Linklater Technique and International Phonetics and has taught Voice and Speech privately as well as at Berg Studios, AMDA, Cal Arts, LACC, and the Sag-Aftra Foundation. Tessa has been the voice of several national campaigns, including Princess Cruises, Glade, White Castle, FEMA, and many others. She’s voiced video games, re-voiced starring roles in feature films with major directors (and signed NDA’s saying she can’t tell you what or who) and narrated audiobooks. Tessa Auberjonois has appeared on On the Verge, The Affair, Shameless, Lucifer, I’m Dying Up Here, Modern Family, Law & Order(s), ER, and many other shows as well as feature and short films. On stage, she has performed in many classical and contemporary plays Off-Broadway and at theatres across the country such as the Kirk Douglas and South Coast Repertory, Hartford Stage, Yale Rep, and The Shakespeare Theatre of D.C. among others. Awards & Nominations include the 2020 Ovation Award nomination for Best Lead Actress, the 2018 Lunt-Fontanne Award, Best Actress in a play 2017 OC Weekly, Nominated for Best Female Guest Star for a TV Voiced Performance 2018 from Behind the Voice Actors, Sermoonjoy Fund, and Fox Foundation Fellowships, and the Oliver Thorndike Award for excellence in acting upon graduation from The Yale School Drama, where she trained, as well as LAMDA. She has taught and coached voice and speech, dialect and accent work, and voiceover to actors at many programs in LA and privately as well as being currently on faculty at AMDA.
DATE and TIME
1:00 pm to 4:00 pm PST
Wednesday and Friday
March 5th, 7th, 12th, and 14th
WHERE:
The Berg Studios Annex
3273 Casitas Ave
Suite 105
Los Angeles (Atwater Village), CA 90039
Cost:
$280 for all students
In order to secure a spot in this amazing workshop, contact the office (M-F 10 am to 5 pm PST) to put down a deposit (50% of tuition) today. Due to the nature of this workshop, deposits are non-refundable. Based on the structure of this workshop, the purchase of individual days is not possible.
