The Shakespeare Theatre Company

Ellen O'Brien

Voice and Text

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Photograph of Ellen O'Brien, Voice and Speech Ellen O’Brien, Head of Voice and Text for the Shakespeare Theatre Company, has also coached dozens of Shakespeare productions for such theatres as the Kennedy Center, People’s Light and Theatre Company, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Charlotte Repertory Theatre and The North Carolina Shakespeare Festival. At Shakespeare Santa Cruz, she also served as Associate Director for Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. She has led workshops on Shakespeare’s verse and language for theatre companies, colleges, universities and other organizations, including the Shakespeare Association of America, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the National Council of Teachers of English. Her dialect work includes productions at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Ford’s Theatre, People’s Light and Theatre Company, the Aurora Theater (San Francisco), Aruba Productions and Guilford College.

A member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association, O’Brien holds Advanced and Post-Graduate Degrees in Voice Studies from Central School of Speech and Drama (London) and a PhD in English from Yale University. She is the Associate Editor for Heightened Text, Verse and Scansion for The Voice and Speech Review, 2011. Her publications include essays in Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Survey, Selected Proceedings of the World Shakespeare Congress, 1996, Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Shakespearean Illuminations: Insights from Performance and elsewhere. Before coming to the ACA, she taught at the University of California Santa Cruz, Kirkland College and Guilford College, where her directing work included Measure for Measure and Henry V.