Free Your Voice

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Free Your Voice

Freeing Your Voice is a boutique executive Voice, Speech,Presentation and Communications coaching service for Professionals, Leaders, Artists and Healers.

06/04/2025

What do give the Man who has given you the Best of himself and then some?! You give him your time, presence, energy, and gratitude.

Hanging out with my beloved Mentor, David Smukler last summer in Toronto. To express all I’ve received from David, as an artist, a teacher, a coach and as a Man would take a life time and perhaps an entire book.

He’s my template and constant source of inspiration..his work, practice and presence accompanies me in every studio and teaching space I walk into.

The exercises I gleaned from him over the years through his own unique expression of Linklater Voice work never fail..they always deliver results for me, my clients and my students.

He is the embodiment of a Master Teacher. David Smukler touched and changed so many lives in his 30 plus year academic teaching career in numerous countries and several continents that the international community had to hold three separate retirement parties and celebrations for him. Messages, missives and well wishes poured in from all over the globe.

When you speak to David feel you are the only person in the world. When I picked up the phone to call he was and is always attentive, always compassionate, sometimes chiding, playfully irreverent, but always emboldening and nourishing in ways you didn’t even know you needed.

I realized at all those different so called “retirement parties” he was that person for hundreds of people all over the world.

A true Sage. 🎴

My love, respect, admiration and appreciation for him can’t be fully expressed in words. I do my best to honour him by how I live my life; offer my teaching, express my art, and surrender to my callings.

I seek to emulate the spirit of servant leadership he so thoroughly embodied with wisdom and the humility of a beginners mind. To step forward with the strength of conviction with which he stepped into his vocation and courageously carry on.

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05/31/2025

It is said that..”when the student is ready the teacher will appear..”however, the other side of the equation is that the teacher too has to be ready or at least willing. Kristin Linklater shared that initially Iris Warren did not want to teach her. Kristin recalled waiting outside Iris’s office door for copious hours she was adamant and would not take not take No for an answer. Eventually her shadowing and petitioning off Iris wore her down and Iris reluctantly let her begin to observe her teaching but it wasn’t all given over on a silver plater Kristin had to earn access to Iris’s secrets and methodology. After years of careful study and application Kristin would then take what she gleaned from Iris and go on to change the world. Upon leaving the UK and arriving in the US her timing could not have been better in New York she encountered an American theatre scene ravenous for the very goods she had to offer..things moved quickly and the demand for her work made it clear that she would need to train other teachers. She put an add out in a Paper and she interviewed three applicants. Enter my mentor David Smukler, Dudley Knight the late great Fran Bennett.They were informed that she only had enough resource to train two of them so one would be cut from the program. That ended up being Dudley Knight who famously went on to have huge career as a Voice teacher, actor, author and one of the co- creators of Knight Thomason Speechwork. Proof that the path to excellence is varied and often tailor made to the individual. David and Fran set off on an epic journey with Kristin and a catalyzing relationship with the work that would define a significant portion of the personal and professional lives for decades to come. David shared that “Kristin’s work gave him the means through which he could be public in the world.”Many years later I would begin my own epic journey with David and his unique expression of Kristin’s Work. It changed my life and has become of a chief cornerstone stone of my personal and professional life.It would be many years after encountering David that I would meet his running mate and big Sister Fran Bennett. But her timing could not have been more impeccable. Looking back the divine orchestration of it all is undeniable.A blessing for which I remain eternally grateful. ☝🏾💜✨🤲🏾✨💜🙏🏿 link to the original video is below with Kristin being interviewed by celebrated British stage and screen actor Chukwudi Iwuji.https://youtu.be/edZh6CqneCs?si=IME7O44i0-oyNG7b

01/10/2024

When the House music drops I dare you not do dance..💃🏽✨🕺🏾

10/30/2023

The conversations that took place before these photos were epic..what took place after this moment was epic..the love itself Epic…and so for 22 years now we journey on until as they say the proverbial “wheels fall off” or we sprout wings and do it all again next life time..🌌

Happy Anniversary Beloved🌅

09/15/2023

Rounding Out week 3…I’m Missing these bright lights in the building..✨

Make no mistake these young people came into the program as fully formed artists by that I mean they had the desire and capacity, to bare and share the truth of the human experience and the courage to pay the price…that you can’t teach.

I have such vivid memories of each one of them…we entered the program together in 2019 and my first experience of them as Freshmen was their “theatrical handshake monologue…”

Barbara Mackenzie-Wood and Don Wadsworth led their warm up that year…and I recall the moment they got on their feet the room exploded with focus and attention..they were so present it was electric..and they hadn’t even started to move…wow I thought to myself so this Carnegie Mellon School of Drama!!

What I got to witness over the next 4 years was a honing of that which they already possessed.

As Barbara was away on leave that year I taught them text Analysis for actors…
For that class the Actors and MT’s were in separate classes I often marveled at and commented on how different each room was…and relished the opportunity to play.

None of us could predict what would happen next as they began their sophomore year on line…{Zoom School} with my brilliant colleague Lisa Velten Smith and I both teaching Sophomore Voice Practicum II

By junior year we were back in person and we spent a lot of time together with me teaching Voice for the Stage III and the newly introduced Actor as Artist course.

I also had the honour and privilege of Directing a number of them in Dominique Morisseau’s
“Blood at the Root”

Coming out the Pandemic we were not only sharing space together for the first time in months we were afforded the opportunity to co-create together and what followed was an experience I’ll always treasure.

For those who weren’t studying abroad we had one more studio class together in their Senior year and later I witnessed them take all they had learned; brought to bear in some beautiful productions with some stunning performances.

They Are ALL Out in the world now The Class of 2023!! and I/ We couldn’t be prouder of all they have weathered and accomplished.

I have every confidence

08/28/2023

Photo credit..:

Hard to believe I’m Heading into my 5th Year of Teaching
Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama..🎭

It’s true what Kristin Linklater said our students are our best teachers.
This year I have the privilege of..:

Teaching..:

Sophomores: Voice Practicum
Juniors: Voice for the Stage
Juniors: Actor as Artist
Seniors: Advanced Voice

Directing..:

Graduating Senior Acting Class of 2024 In PASSAGE by Christopher Chen!

Working with gifted early career dramaturge, media, set, costume, lighting and sound designers, with a Cracker Jack Stage Management team! 💫

Rehearsals: January 16-February 19
Tech: February 20-February 28
Performances: February 29-March 16

Anyone in Canada fancy a road trip to Pittsburgh to see PASSAGE let me know?

I’m Just Next Door, Next State, across the border or across the sea…let’s see…what we can get up to and Create Something!! 🌐

Photo credit..:

08/23/2023

♦️..And We’re Open..♦️
The Amen Corner is about many things but Ultimately it’s about Love..Black Love in all it’s broken, bitter beautiful, tragic, desperate, jubilant, triumphant, transcendent , and Divine forms..
a Love when shared On & Off the stage is Ultimately Universal.

Amen and Amen!!
☝🏾✨🤲🏾✨🙏🏿

With Stunning and Achingly Beautiful Performances by an international cast of Actors it’s an experience not to be missed.

Serving as the Voice & Dialect coach on this extraordinary production was a true Gift.

The Amen Corner by James Baldwin

Directed by Kimberely Rampersad
Musical Direction by Jeremiah Sparks
Set Design by Anahita Debonehie
Costume Design by Nadine Grant
Lighting Design by Michael Kangas

Stage management by Leigh McClymont
Assistant stage management by Sang-Sang Lee and Jane Vanstone Osborn
Assistant set design by Yiming Liu
Assistant costume design by Emily Dotson
Assistant lighting design by Emilie Trimbee

https://www.shawfest.com/playbill/the-amen-corner/

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Toronto
Toronto, ON
M5R3G9

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+14169313922

Website

http://www.freeingyourvoice.ca/

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