Dialect Coach Amy Stoller

I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Amy Stoller, dialect coach for actors in New York City. I have discovered that there are basically two kinds of actors who want to learn a dialect or who have a need for dialect coaching:

1. There are many visitors from to ActingCareerStartUp.com who live outside the U.S. and who want to come here to work as actors, but who need to work on or learn an American accent.

2. Their are also actors who are American and who want to perfect a different accent, such as Britsh or Southern accents for example. This interview will give you some insight on how a dialect coach works.

Tony: Could you please start out by giving us a little background on yourself and how you got to this point in your life of being a dialect coach?

Amy: Well, like many dialect coaches, I started out as an actor and I realized I had a facility for doing accents and dialects. I actually got a lot of work doing them. And when I was between engagements and acting classes I was taking to ‘keep my motor running’, I would sometimes work on scenes that would require accents other than my own. I would be working in acting classes using my accents and fellow students would come to me and say things like: “I’ve been assigned a scene in which I’m required to speak with an English accent (or another kind of accent). Can you help me?” So I did.

Tony: So was that something that just came natural to you or did you have to work to develop that skill?

Amy: For me it was an absolutely natural facility. I had had maybe four hours worth of formal training at a high level, which I actually got after I had been working as an actor for quite some time and using accents and dialects in my work. It was those four hours of training that gave me the tools with which to help other people. Otherwise I would have just had to say: “Well, you just have to do it (the accent) like I do it.” But if they could just simply do it like I do it, then they wouldn’t need coaching.
 They would offer me money, but I didn’t feel comfortable taking money from fellow students in the same class, so I would just tell them to bring me something that I was too cheap to buy myself, like a nice bouquet of flowers or a bottle of wine.
So that’s how I did it.

And then in 1995 I had already left that particular acting studio. One day I received a phone call from the head of the studio who told me that he had a young director who needed dialect coaching for the actors in his play. He’s going to do Oscar Wilde’s ‘An Ideal Husband and he needs a dialect coach. The director asked me if he could put the director in touch with me and I said yes.

The director then called me and explained what he wanted. I told him that it was an interesting project, but that I had never coached a whole show before and asked him if he really wanted to take that chance and hand his whole show over to me. He said yes. I said yes and it turned out to be a very successful production.

It was a showcase, but artistically it was a great success and I was paid for the first time, the princely sum of $75 to coach the cast of a large play.

Among the people who saw that show was another director named Jonathan Bank, who is now the artistic director of the Mint Theatre Company. A year and a half later he called me and asked if I would work together with him on a production he was reviving of Mr. ______________ Passes By. I accepted that job for, let’s just say a little more than $75! He was very happy with my work and as a result, I have been the dialect coach at the Mint ever since.

Tony: But you also do private coaching. Correct?

Amy: Yes, that was the story of how I actually got started doing production coaching and it was after that, that I really began doing private coaching for money. So I do both. I’ve also worked at other theatres in New York and have begun making end roads into some of the bigger, more important regional theatre companies as well. I’ve also worked at ART in Boston. And I do some work in television, which I very much enjoy. I’ve been dialect coach for Dora The Explorer and Go Diego Go and I also get to work with kids, which is enormous fun.
And I’ve done some independent films and graduate projects that then go on to make the rounds on the film festival circuit.

I really love working in the theatre. I love the aspect of exchanging breath and energy with the audience and that it is immediate. That was always exciting to me as an actor and it is just as exciting to me to be engaged in as a coach.

Acting Schools in Orlando teach a variety of acting techniques. Investigate them before you sign up.

Also, make sure that you know how to choose the right school and dialect coach for you.

Let us know which country and/or city for which you would like to see acting schools listed.

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What you're doing is great Anthony. Whenever I read the things on your site, the interviews and even your book, I feel like if only everybody got to read this before they got started, they would be so much better off and everybody else (casting directors, agents, directors, etc.) would be so much better off too.
Personal Manager, Ingrid French

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Tony,
I want to say you changed my life. I want to be an actress so bad, but i began losing motivation when I couldn't figure out what to do. And then I found you! Thanks to you, I'm taking my first acting classes next month! Yippee!
Sara, Pasadena, CA

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Dear Anthony,
Just wanted to thank you for bringing me in to [audition for the video], meet you and chat this Saturday. I was really excited to hear about your working on actingcareerstartup.com and even took a look at it today - it's awesome! You are very well-spoken, knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and it shows through the work that you do! I hope our paths in the industry will cross again and really enjoyed meeting you. Thanks, again and best wishes with your very important work!
Warmly,
Gretchen, NY, NY

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