The Rain in Spain... DIALECT WORK

Christine Hamel, Dialect Coach

This weekend the cast was visited by the wonderful, Christine Hamel! She's the dialect coach for the the Hanover Theatre's "A Christmas Carol". There's a cast of 31 this year and most of us do multiple accents in the show. We spend a good deal of time talking about what class levels our characters come from. For example, the guests at Fred Scrooge's party are a higher class and therefore mostly speak in a Standard Upper Class British accent, also known as RP (Received Pronounciation). Whereas, lower class characters like the Charwoman & Old Joe speak in a Cockney accent. Some of the actors even use Irish accents in our show.

After taking notes on our run-through this Friday, Christine coached both the Youth Ensemble and the Adult Ensemble. She also worked privately with cast members. One of my personal notes from Christine involved the word "odious"; she reminded me Mrs. Cratchit needs to say "aye-dias" instead! Also she asked me to raise my class slightly by adding the "h's" back to my dialogue. So listen and make sure I apply the correction :D

To read more about Christine Hamel, check out: http://www.bu.edu/cfa/theatre/faculty/hamel/

Andrew Haserlat, Peter Adams, Andrew Sellon, and co. practice with Christine Hamel