As a museum theatre professional, I would have to agree with no accent.
Doing a bad accent detracts from the quality of the theatre and often
takes away from the educational aspect.  If people keep focusing on
"what a bad accent" then they are not learning.

Based on what you are able to pay people and what caliber of actor you
have, it may your responsibility to provide them with the research
necessary to create their character.  At our museum, we do not offer
professional actor pay (however compared to professional theatres in the
area, it is ok).  My actors are very committed but based on what we are
able to pay, I can not expect them to do their own research (some do
anyway..what a blessing!).

The artistic value and the educational value must be equal.  Bad theatre
dilutes your message and the best actor who does not understand the
educational power of theatre is just a "nice show".


Christina M. Myatt
Theatrical Programming Coordinator
Putnam Museum
1717 West 12th Street
Davenport IA 52804
563.324.1054 ext. 207 (phone)
[log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From:         Beth Ilyssa Tischler <[log in to unmask]>
Date:         Thu, 29 May 2003 19:37:38 EDT
Subject: Re: Civil War Accent for Actor

> As an ex-professional actor, i have to qualify deb's comment: a) mel
> gibson
> may be professional, but he is not an actor :) b) any stage actor
> worth his
> salt can learn almost any accent, but it may be more hassle than its
> worth as no
> one knows exactly how they spoke and consistency among actors will be
> hard
> with no standard to work from. Certainly, I would recommend using
> classically
> trained stage actors -- it will be easiest for them to get rid of the
> colloquialisms of today and go to a neutral place for a period piece.
> Also, as a Philadelphian and someone who knew some of the historic
> Philly
> people, the whole Historic Philadelphia situation is really a shame.
> They pay
> enough for good actors to work for them (its a great day job for
> actors and
> summer job for acting students), but they don't recruit the good
> actors, and the
> good ones that do work for them usually end up in the singing groups
> or the
> specifically "acting" troupes, not the living history stuff.
> don't let them ruin your trip to philly! come visit me at the Atwater
> Kent,
> where I begin my internship on monday :) <A
> HREF="www.philadelphiahistory.org">www.philadelphiahistory.org</A>
> beth
>
>
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> > Accents: don't. Even most professional actors can't do them well.
> >
> > As for speech patterns, read diaries, journals, plays and popular
> literature
> > of
> > the time period to get an idea of how people spoke. If you can find
> examples
> > from the same geographical area you are in, that is even better.
> Wearing the
> > period clothing helps too. If you wear it long enough, you'll find
> that it
> > will
> > change the way you move which will help your "character". Period
> dances of
> > the
> > time are good for teaching that as well.
> >
> > It's my experience that speech patterns and mannerisms are much
> more
> > effective
> > for conveying a character than accent. You should be able to tell
> that
> > someone
> > is "different" without them having to utter a word. Thus, it is
> better to
> > forget about the accent (because until phonographs, we really don't
> know
> > what
> > people sounded like anyway). And again, very few people can really
> master
> > accents and thus instead of adding to a character, they usually
> become
> > distractions.
> >
> > A funny side story, a British friend and I were walking through the
> historic
> > part of Philadelphia and cringing at the bad "English" accents
> being used by
> > the living history people. He said to me, "You're accent is
> probably more
> > correct than mine for this time period." The fact that the women
> had
> > draw-string mob caps didn't help much either. Tisk tisk Philly, you
> guys
> > should
> > know better.
> >
> > Deb
> >
>
>
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