Dear Fellow Stuttering Actors,
I’ve often heard the stage nicknamed an “actor’s playground”. But really, we can conjure up a dynamic space for ourselves anywhere. My living room has been exploited as a landing pan to crash-courses (emphasis on the crash) in stage falls. And every theatre major knows the feeling of stumbling upon the most glorious of meccas, which would be an empty practice room the size of a matchbook.
What matters more than where we do our work, is the specific ways in which we do it.
This is what I refer to as “the process”.
Whether our process simply prepares us for coming auditions or carries that work over to subsequent (and desired) gigs is everchanging. A lot of professionals will tell you that scoring roles is a game of both patience and dumb luck. But I believe the ways in which we develop our process influence the “stupidity” of our own fortune. Meaning if we devote ourselves to the work needing to be done, we might speed up the time it takes to pull up to a dramatic greenlight.
And then of course we’ll fail the next time, and maybe even start blaming our process.
As stutterers, we’ll probably slip back into wavering self-doubt. As people, we definitely will.
But there’s so much that remains out of our control. A story exists behind every “no”, most of which we’ll never hear (unless your Drama department is riding on the inappropriate express). Staying consistent with the parts of our process that we find beneficial is more important than worrying about all of life’s “what ifs?”.
I can’t say any methods I’ve adopted into my personal process are universally foolproof.
But as a stutterer, there are a few I’d like to at least share with you.
Starting with…
1. Thinking of Dialogue as Music
What I’m doing is essentially treating my spoken lines like mini songs. This includes analyzing the placement of pauses, as well as changes in tempo or pitch. In the music industry, these components are all blended together by creators in ways that make sense to them. So it helps me as a stutterer to consider all of these layers when delivering dialogue. I urge myself to engage with everything besides a clean formation of sound leaving my mouth. (Once I have already accepted that I’m not perfect.)
Not only am I drawing my attention away from fears of stuttering, but I’m starting to think intuitively about how the character would speak in general. I’m doing what I can to treat both myself and my role with the respect we deserve. And that requires not letting our stutter dominate us mentally.
Music is sometimes an afterthought when we think of traditional storytelling methods. But good music, similar to compelling poetry, is carefully constructed in order to evoke the desired effects of the song. I’m thinking beyond the lyrical aspect and focusing more on what goes on behind and in between specific phrases.
When I receive a script, my efforts are spent trying to create a vocal flow that makes sense for my interpretation of a role.
To simplify this step for myself, I turn to my background as a singer.
It’s strange, but I approach my lines like I would if I were about to sing them. And I deliver them with the same level of thought that I would if I were belting out some Stephen Sondheim hit. Sondheim’s compositions are known primarily for treating every word as a moment, fleeting but serving an important purpose in achieving the final product. There isn’t a single moment in which we can be anything less than invested. Once again, complex works like this can be used to track us off of our stuttering anxieties. Simply because there are too many other aspects of the text needing consideration.
That’s not to say that your portrayal of Bobby in Company cant include a stutter. Just that if it’s all you focus on, your time developing the role might be unfulfilling. No matter how you speak, you’re allowed to appreciate the breadth of emotion that comes with well-written characters.
In my mind Sondheim is the one and only musical theatre equivalent of William Shakespeare.
Works written by the Bard initially present themselves as the most difficult for stutterers. But his style of language, which relies heavily on iambic pentameter, is written with high regard to a specific rhythm.
Dissecting one of Shakespeare’s soliloquies and identifying its emotional shifts is a necessary first step. However, after building that connection, the way is then paved for us to build up a freeing momentum. Even within the structure of Shakespeare’s blank verse, ten-syllable per line scheme(this indicates that corresponding lines rarely rhyme with one another), there is room for a bevy of different interpretations.
Stutterers crave any sort of fluency in their words. It’s ironic that sometimes the most intricate-looking verbiage provides us a chance to attain it. It’s a testament to dramatic pioneers like Shakespeare. He’s a writer who knew the importance of how dialogue should sound leaving a person. In turn, he makes us want to care about this too. Disfluent individuals such as myself are already at a sly advantage here. I already obsess over how my words sound. Instead of dismissing that as an inherent truth, I try to redirect my obsession into a steady focus. A retooling of my attention onto other characteristics of my voice.
Even though Shakespeare lays out his trademarked patterns to follow, they’re undoubtedly structured in a way that opens a channel for in-depth vocal exploration. And they definitely have a singsong essence to them. In fact, many of his plays contain metaphorical mentions of music. And a number of them incorporate musical stylings into them.
If history’s most regarded dramatist held onto the importance of music, shouldn’t we? Especially since a number of famous musicians find themselves inspired by the themes presented in his work. (I’m looking at all of you Taylor Swift fans. Love Story, perhaps?)
Conclusively, there’s no one reason why stutterers are able to sing without issue. Instead of mulling tirelessly on that mystery, I try to take replicate the experience of singing and insert it into my acting.
The two are more closely related than we realize.
Truthfully, there’s always a very real chance that we will stutter on stage. So then, what is the real purpose of relaying this tip?
Since you’re an actor, I would venture out on a limb and assume that you enjoy the art form. Whether it be Sondheim or Shakespeare, whether we stutter or not, we cannot allow ourselves to be boxed in by our setbacks. When we do that, we lose time that could be spent realizing how much more character our voices are capable of creating. Or rewarding our creative drives the chance to flourish through a process.