Louis Colaianni: About the Artist

Click here to listen to his interview.

Louis Colaianni is an acting, voice, speech and dialect coach in the professional theatre. He recently coached June Moon at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and The Impresario at the Santa Fe Opera.  On Broadway, he coached Will Ferrell in You’re Welcome America, and Madeleine Martin for August Osage County. Off-Broadway he coached Even Ensler’s Emotional Creature and The LABirynth Theater’s The Little Flower Of East Orange. In regional theatre he served three seasons as Voice and Text Director at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and has coached at Utah Shakespearean Festival, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Shakespeare & Company, Shakespeare Festival of St Louis, Westport Country Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Kansas City Rep, Trinity Rep, Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep. He is an adjunct associate professor at Pace University’s Actors Studio Drama School, Syracuse University Department of Drama and Yale School of Drama. He has also taught at Columbia University, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Trinity Repertory Theatre and Conservatory, Vassar College, Ohio University, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Dartmouth College, University of Pittsburgh, University of South Carolina, ACT, O’Neill Theatre Center. He has a teacher certification program for his method of Phonetics, Speech and Dialects, which is taught at North Carolina School of the Arts, Boston University, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Folkwang Universitat der Kunste, Cork Institute of Technology-School Of Music, University of Southern California, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque, Azusa Pacific University, Philadelphia University of the Arts, the Maggie Flanigan Studio, and many other actor training programs. He has coached professional productions for directors Nicholas Martin, Des McAnuff, Marshall Mason, Vivian Matalon, Adam McKay, Michael Gieleta, Laird Williamson, Peter Amster, Maria Irene Fornes, George Keathley, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jo Bonney, Marion McClinton, Larry Carpenter, Ed Stern, Sharon Ott, JR Sullivan, Henry Godinez, Marty Callner, David Aspaugh and many others. He is the author of The Joy Of Phonetics and Accents, Bringing Speech To Life, How To Speak Shakespeare, and Shakespeare’s Names: a new pronouncing dictionary. He has given workshops in Shakespeare performance, voice, speech, phonetics and dialects internationally.