Inclusive and Equitable strategies for Speech, Accent and Dialect Training

Daron Oram’s practice-based research and teaching focuses on the development of new approaches to speech, accent and dialect training for the actor.

In this seminar Daron will talk through the context of his research at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, identifying some of the ways in which traditional approaches to training can dysconsciously discriminate against students in terms of race, class, regionality, and internationality.

Daron’s innovative practice works towards an anti-oppressive training for actors that allows for equitable learning.

This emerging pedagogy mitigates the tension between the needs of diverse cohorts of acting students and industry expectations.

At the heart of this work is an approach to training listening that draws on verbatim/documentary theatre techniques and asks both the teacher and student to listen differently.

The end result is an approach to pedagogy that shifts the power dynamics of the acting studio and aligns with anti-racist and anti-discriminatory principles by decentring and/or decolonising traditional value systems.