Profiles of Catherine Fitzmaurice and Dudley Knight

CATHERINE FITZMAURICE
Catherine Fitzmaurice began her career as an actress when she was three years old. As an adolescent, she intensively studied acting and began a lifetime of thorough work in perfecting her voice and speech techniques. One of her early voice and speech teachers was Barbara Bunch, who also taught acclaimed voice teacher Cicely Berry. She studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and would begin a teaching career there in 1965.

Fitzmaurice was initially frustrated with many of her students' lack of vocal expressivity. Fitzmaurice pinpointed the problem as being primarily tension within the breathing process. Fitzmaurice began studying yoga and meditation, and along with her traditional voice training, developed Fitzmaurice voice work.

Today, Fitzmaurice Voicework is a highly respected means of perfecting one's voice and speech patterns and habits. It is used not only by actors, but by many various professionals looking to improve their voice in order to excel in their fields. Catherine Fitzmaurice continues to teach in New York City, where she also resides.

DUDLEY KNIGHT
Dudley Knight was born July 1st, 1939, in Rochester, Minnesota, and raised in Connecticut. He is a Master teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, who emphasizes releasing physical tension in the voice to improve one's voice and speech, which is essentially one of the primary foundations of Catherine Fitzmaurice's work. He received a BA of English Literature at Haverford College, and proceeded to earn an MFA in Acting at Yale University. As an actor, he has appeared in over one-hundred stage productions and over thirty television and film productions. He was on the national board of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association from 1996-1999, and currently teaches at the University of California, Irvine. In addition, he continues to conduct workshops where he teaches Knight Speechwork, his own modified version of Fitzmaurice technique. On his work, he is quoted as saying:

"I believe that both voice and speech development must proceed from a shared sense of process. My voice teaching--founded primarily in Fitzmaurice VoiceWork--focuses on a balance of deep muscular release and development of functional skills. In a similar manner the approach to speech training which I have developed focuses on the freeing of articulatory action combined with skills training; these expand the actor's perception of sound change and ability to explore new possibilities in articulation. Only after this skills development phase are prescriptive patterns for dialects or character voices explored. "

Essentially, the foundations of Knight's work are similar to those of Fitzmaurice, but Knight puts a strong emphasis on developing techniques to perfecting accents. He believes in using a very physical approach to literally shaping the sounds that come from an actor's mouth. He strives to teach his students the sounds of myriad dialects, and the physical quirks and body language that accompany these different accents. Beyond just learning proper speech for any venue of life, Knight emphasizes teaching actors, and actors must know an array of dialects to make them more versatile.