Acting With An Accent 01 – American Regional Accents (mp3s and pdfs)

Acting With An AccentAmerican Regional AccentsLearn to speak with an authentic accent from one of the foremost acting coaches in the world.  (Create your own new persona with a convincing, realistic foreign accent.)  Each course has a pdf of the workbook and mp3s of the lessons.Included accent courses are:AMERICAN SOUTHERNTeaches three general variations: General Deep South (the non-mountain areas of the Southeastern U.S.), Mountain Southern (characteristic of Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and other mountain regions), and Plantation-style Southern (the heavily-resonated dialect of many regions of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, etc., often associated with highly-educated landowners, lawyers, and politicians).BOSTON AND GENERAL NEW ENGLANDTeaches the two styles of dialect spoken within the Boston metropolitan area. This also serves as a general American New England accent.CHICAGO DETROIT BUFFALOTeaches the basic dialect of metropolitan Chicago. This same general speech pattern can also be used for characters originating in Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland or nearly any area on the American side of the Great Lakes.DOWN EAST NEW ENGLAND (MAINE-NEW HAMPSHIRE “YANKEE”)Also known as a “Yankee” accent, this dialect was the dominant speech pattern of Maine and New Hampshire. It can, though, still be heard in many rural and coastal areas of Eastern New England. Because it was once more common in the earlier part of the century, it may still be used in such pieces as Our Town, Desire Under the Elms and Ethan Frome.TEXASIncludes four variations: (1) the general central and east Texas sounds (and Dallas), (2) the more melodic dialect of the Houston area, (3) the flatter sound of west-central and southwest Texas (San Antonio) and (4) the closed, nasal sound of the Panhandle dialect. MID-WEST GREAT PLAINS FARM/RANCH RURALCovers a very big chunk of the U.S., stretching east and west from Indiana to Colorado and north and south from Kansas up through Iowa on one side and Montana on the other. This dialect is for characters from the mid-west farms, though it can reach into the cities of that region. Useful when a character is from a rural ranch but is not supposed to be identified as a Southerner.NEW YORK CITYCovers the general speech patterns of New York City, Westchester County, Long Island, Brooklyn, Bronx, New Jersey and shows actors how to impose Yiddish and Italian flavors upon the New York dialect.UPPER CLASS NEW ENGLAND (Kennedy-esque)Speech pattern made popular in the early 1960s during the JFK administration. This is a mixture of Boston and “Eastern Preparatory School Aristocracy” speech patterns. It is also similar to Katherine Hepburn’s dialect (which originated in Hartford, CT).DAVID ALAN STERN, Ph.D. founded DIALECT ACCENT SPECIALISTS, INC. in Hollywood in 1980. He has coached business executives, broadcast media personalities, government officials, actors, and members of the clergy to modify accents and speak more expressively for over thirty years. Among his celebrity trainees have been: Stephen Baldwin, Mike Farrell, Daryl Hannah, Julie Harris, Jack Klugman, Shelly Long, Liam Neeson, Edward James Olmos, Bronson Pinchot, Lynn Redgrave, and Michael York, as well as Oscar winners Geena Davis, Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, Julia Roberts, and Forest Whitaker.Dr. Stern developed his “Sound & style” accent-reduction technique while teaching non-native actors to audition for the roles of American-born characters. Since the publication of Sound & style’s first edition in 1987, he has taught his effective and entertaining methods to thousands of ESL teachers, speech pathologists, and speech/drama coaches at his own weekend workshops, and at national, state, and local conferences of both TESOL and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Corporate accent-reduction and speech clients have included executives from: Bateman-Eichler-Hill-Richards, Beech Aircraft, Mitsubishi Bank, NCR Corp., TRW Corp., Union Carbide, and Wells Fargo Bank.Dr. Stern is now Professor of Dramatic Arts at his Alma Mater, the University of Connecticut. He continues to do occasional film and television work in addition to serving as Dialect Coach for the Connecticut Repertory Theatre and the Berkshire Theatre Festival.