Dudley Knight
Dudley Knight was an American voice, speech, and dialect expert, as well as a stage and television actor. He was best known for his long career as a speech and dialect teacher and voice director for professional theatre. He conducted workshops and lectures on voice and speech for actors and voice teachers worldwide.
Early life and career
Knight was born July 1, 1939, in Rochester, Minnesota. At age nine, during a class outing to see Laurence Olivier's film version of The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fifth with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France, he became interested in William Shakespeare.He graduated from the Yale School of Drama. He was a co-founder of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut.
Career
He was a professor at the University of California, Irvine, where he taught for twenty years. Knight coached voice, text, and dialects at many theatres, including the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, and American Conservatory Theater. From the mid to late 1970s, Knight hosted a weekly radio series, "The Graveyard Shift", on KPFK, Los Angeles, where he read famous horror stories.He was a Master teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, which is based on the teachings of Catherine Fitzmaurice. He conducted workshops where he taught Knight-Thompson Speechwork, a skills-based approach to speech and accent training for actors that places emphasis on developing the speaker's detailed awareness of and engagement with the skills that make up language. His 2012 book, Speaking With Skill, is considered a major work in its field.