Dr. Abel has been a voice, speech, dialect and phonetics teacher for almost 30 years, working with post-secondary students, singers and both amateur and professional actors. He also teaches acting, with a specialization in Shakespeare, directing, and theatre history. He is an actor, director, playwright and theatre columnist.

VOICE WORK
We do whole-body voice work to make sure the voice is grounded, supported, free and flexible. We then work from physical sensation, the feel of vibrations—a better guide to good sound than sound!—to develop range, power and tonal variety. We’ll help make your voice an instrument you can play like a virtuoso.

“I started my theatre training with Douglas. And his speech and dialect work has proven to be an invaluable base on which I have constantly referred back to in my professional career.”

Kevin Corey, Actor

TEXT WORK
We then apply that free, flexible, exciting voice to the text—the dramatic monologue, poem, or written speech. We teach you to use all the clues the writer has given you—the speech’s own “stage directions”—as to how the speech should be expressed, to what it should sound like, and what those sounds should communicate, both intellectually and emotionally. It’s not just putting the speech into your “own words;” it’s a case of making the words of the speech your own. What the writer needs you to say becomes exactly what you need and want to say.

VOICE AND ACTING FOR SINGERS
We help singers trust their singing technique and musicality so that they can go beyond it, to express fully the meaning and emotion of the music. Good sound is enriched by intention, emotion and action. Beautiful songs become moving songs.

DIALECTS AND ACCENTS
We help you identify and produce the overall sound and quality—the music and melody—of an accent. That general quality is the key to authenticity. We then work with specific sound changes so that the accent or dialect rings true, and can become an essential feature of character.

Great VOICE, effective SPEECH, authentic DIALECTS. Let ACCENTuate The + get you there.