Louis Colaianni

Louis Colaianni (born April 29, 1959 in Paterson, New Jersey) is a prominent voice, speech, dialect and text director in the professional theatre, and teacher of voice, speech, phonetics, acting and Shakespeare performance. He is dialect coach for the Off-Broadway production of Eve Ensler's play Emotional Creature, directed by Jo Bonney. He was dialect coach to Bill Murray for the film Hyde Park on Hudson, Anna Gunn for the film Little Red Wagon, Richard Schiff for the McCarter Theatre's Talley's Folly, under the supervision of Lanford Wilson, and America Ferrera (prep) for the film Chavez. He was vocal coach to Will Ferrell for the Broadway and HBO productions of You're Welcome America. He has taught in many actor-training programs and served as voice and text coach for productions at theatres throughout the United States, including, Playwrights Horizons, The Culture Project, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Westport Country Playhouse, The McCarter Theatre, The Labyrinth Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Shakespeare Festival of St Louis, Trinity Repertory Theatre, Utah Shakespearean Festival and Seattle Repertory Theatre. He is the author of several books including, The Joy of Phonetics and Accents, Shakespeare's Names: A New Pronouncing Dictionary, Bringing Speech to Life (with Claudia Anderson), and How to Speak Shakespeare (with Cal Pritner). He was a tenured, associate professor at University of Missouri–Kansas City. He teaches Acting Classics, Speech and Voice at the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University and formerly, at Vassar College, as adjunct associate professor. Louis Colaianni has given workshops internationally. He invented the Phonetic Pillows approach to Phonetics and Stage Accents which is used by many actor training programs. He studied voice with Kristin Linklater and is a Designated Linklater Teacher.

Louis Colaianni's father, James F. Colaianni, is an author, theologian and activist who wrote Married Priests and Married Nuns and The Catholic Left, and was editor of Ramparts.