Acting In English
I have lived and worked in the German speaking World for over twenty years now and have been blessed to work with some of the best during that time in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This experience has given me a unique insight into the difficulties of working and thinking in German and in English from the Germanspeakers perspective. My journey from being a non-German speaker to one who rarely works in English has taught me much about the process of thinking and working in a language one has not 100 percent mastered in real life and yet being convincing on camera. What I realized is the importance of thought remaining fluid and personal, and hours and hours of articulation and pronunciation exercises. Because most German speakers speak a very good English one is used to being complimented – this can lead to a false sense of achievement, just like with German – what is adequate for conversation is not enough for performance.
For many years, I could see no real need for working with actors in my native language. Being born in Nigeria my schooling was in the UK. I attended two, Hogwarts like institutions from the age of five to nineteen and finished my education sounding like a member of the Royal Family. I then went to America to university in Washington D.C. Upon my return to the UK I entered Drama school at what is now The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. We were trained to dissect and reconstruct the English language. As well as all known accents we learnt standard Received Pronunciation, the British equivalent to German Bühnendeutsch and I soon realized that my international upbringing gave me a talent for accents. In 1994 I arrived in Berlin and started work at the Schaubühne under Andrea Breth’s Direction. At that time there were two different Worlds never to be united. There were a few German speaking actors working in Hollywood and absolutely no English speakers working here apart from in the off scene. Netflix, Amazon and American filmmakers tastes has changed all that. Now it is just as likely that a German speaking Actor will be cast in an English speaking production often filmed in Germany!
I offer workshops split into three sections as well as individual coaching and coaching for entire productions.