I am a dialect coach, actor, and historical interpreter. I created Voicing the Past as a way to bring these areas together, and share my expertise with others seeking to represent the past.
I grew up in Massachusetts and first stepped onto the stage in high school. I fell in love with theatre and went on to earn a BFA in Acting. During my training I became enamored with the process of examining and learning new accents. Soon after graduation I found myself being offered jobs to coach accents for various theatrical productions. I then moved back to Massachusetts and pursued both acting and dialect coaching opportunities in the Boston area.
During that time I was hired as an actor at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, beginning my foray into historical interpretation. My time working there caused me to deeply consider the vocal choices we make as performers when representing the past. I began to explore what the scholarship is regarding the historical spoken word—especially for eras before the advent of audio recording technology. I quickly learned that our perception of what sounds historically authentic is inconsistent with the evidence presented in primary sources and secondary scholarship. Indeed it is often more representative of our contemporary attitudes toward speech and accent. While this approach isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I felt there was room to explore a more authentic approach. I wanted to offer performers, directors, and fellow dialect coaches vocal choices grounded in historical linguistic research that they could choose to incorporate into their work.
Thus was born Voicing the Past.
–Christopher S. Davis
