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Touring Tune-Up
An actor getting ready for a major tour—or any long stage run—is like an athlete prepping for the playoffs. You must be in top physical and vocal shape if you're to have any hope of success. More »

The Truth in the Text
Lester Shane made his stage debut as "the littlest Pepper of them all" in a Cleveland production of "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew," and he's been acting ever since. More »

Audition Tension
Nancy Mayans thinks about what happens to the body as concern mounts. She worries that the result could be the actor's body tightening before an audition. More »

Acting Your 16 Bars
Musical theater hopefuls sing their 16 carefully chosen bars at open calls. One after another, they belt their highest notes as loud as they can and then...nothing except a thank you. More »

Just Breathe
"You can't control what people are going to think of your audition, but you can control everything else." More »

Top 10 Exercises for Your Vocal Health
As a voice teacher, I've found certain exercises that work well for most singers and help get fast results. Unless noted, they can be used with any scale. More »

Fear of Singing
"When working with new clients, I always begin by trying to ascertain what it is about their voices that they perceive as problematic or would like to improve." More »

You and the Role and the Music
Auditioning is possibly the world's quickest job interview. In as little as 16 bars, you need to convey that you're a great singer, a great actor, and a responsible professional. More »

Diva Development
If you saw Donizetti's La Sonnambula at the Metropolitan Opera this season, you witnessed Carrie-Ann Matheson being hauled from the prompter's box during the fracas that ends the first act. More »

Projection Protection
A play can be as hard on the voice as a musical, with actors required to communicate intense emotions on a nightly basis—emotions that can stress the vocal folds, causing swelling and worse. More »

Below the Belt
Seth Rudetsky calls himself a deconstructor. Rudetsky appropriated the word to describe his compulsion to analyze show tunes as performed by the singers he "ido-Lizas." More »

Wesla's More
"Kids don't want to hear about me," Wesla Whitfield says of the many students she's been teaching for the past four years at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, Calif. More »

Ear Training With Bruce Arnold
The ability to accurately hear and analyze music is one of the hallmarks of a great musician. Most music students develop it through ear training. But traditional methods can leave them frustrated when they try to apply the concepts they've learned to actual music. More »