To Trust The Journey: The Speaking Voice

Weekend voice masterclass led by Françoise Walot (Designated Linklater Teacher) assisted by Joanna Kurzyńska (Designated Linklater Teacher).

4-6 April 2025 - The Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, POLAND.

"It is what you say and why you say it that matters, not how you say it", a voice and text workshop to explore the intrinsic connections between voice and speech using Linklater's voice and text approaches and beyond.
We, actors, have consciously and unconsciously in mind how we want to speak text, how it will "sound" and for that, how we will modulate our voices for certain effects and how some of the words we will emphasise will ring and clarify what we say. We also think of the character and their characteristics: the way they would use language; rhythm, pitch: their prosody. These are processes that happen from the moment we read the piece we have to or want to learn by heart, these are normal processes. We want to control how we speak.

Nevertheless, the ability to create and re-create a speech in rehearsal and when performing for an audience demands more than that if we want to connect to a deeper experience as performers and if we trust that we can achieve results maybe livelier for us, maybe more surprising for the audience. So, what is it that we need to practice to engage in a more profound, less thought-of connection with the words we say on stage? Can we trust that our breath and bodies know more than what our mind and our thoughts think they know? Can we trust we can restore the control of how we speak to our breath and our emotions, to our living imagination?

In this workshop, we will explore the connections between impulses and breath, thoughts, images and the act of speaking. Each day, we will warmup the voice thoroughly following the Linklater progression of exercises covering physical awareness and release, resonance, vocal range and clarity. On day one, we will work physically on the structure of the texts, exploring the connections between breathing, thinking, feeling and speaking. On day two, we will forage vertically into texts discovering how imagery impacts voice and speech.

The work is collective with many occasions to work in pairs and an invitation to individual coaching on both days using different physical exercises to help restore the voice and the speaking of text to the whole body.

Please, bring a monologue from a Shakespeare play or from a Greek tragedy and bring with you a couple of paper copies of the text. To fully benefit from the workshop, learn your lines by heart. Make sure you know who you are in the play, who you speak to and why. Make sure you understand every word you say.