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Apprenticeship Program 2001-2004 at The Royal Theatre
under the tutelage of Docent Keld Thaarup

                                                                                      

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August Bournonvilles Passage, Copenhagen

September 1, 2006

 

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The present document is to be considered a Certificate of Apprenticeship for – as well as a recommendation of – Sasha Lystrup Andersen.

Within a foreseeable future, I will be retiring from many years of working – at most of the theaters in Denmark – as an instructor in speaking and singing.

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Since it happens to be the case that I have not been able, forthwith, to spot my successors in the landscape of teachers who have been educated in the use of voice and rhetoric, I have had to come to grips with the necessity of taking onto my own shoulders the task of educating a successor who will eventually take over my functions.

Entering into collaboration with Sasha Lystrup Andersen has been a pleasure for me. From the autumn semester 2001 up through the autumn of 2004, Ms. Lystrup Andersen followed the course of my efforts as vocal coach at The Royal Theatre.
In addition to fulfilling, under my tutelage, the requirements of her personal apprenticeship program, Sasha Lystrup Andersen was also working as my teaching assistant during this same period.

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Sphere of activity for a voice coach
The sphere of activity for a vocal coach working at a theater consists primarily of offering instruction and guidance in linguistic/scenic communication and in caring for – and keeping in good order – the actors' vocal potentials. This activity transpires in close collaboration with the actor, the theatre manager, the various directors and the sound engineers. In this aggregate collaboration, a collaboration that is necessarily conditioned on trust and openness, the speech trainer cannot have her/his own agenda but must instead function exclusively as a catalyst in the dialogical process between actor and director. The objective is to ensure the highest speaking quality and to impart to the actor a sense of overview and an understanding of current rhetorical options.

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Requirements with respect to qualifications
In order to discharge the duties of working as vocal coach at a theater, the following prerequisites must be satisfied:

 

• A thorough knowledge of the voice’s anatomy and physiology.

 

• The ability to help with acute voice-related problems and to develop the actors’    vocal potentials and maintain these in the finest order.

 

• A good ear for language, both with respect to literary style and to genre as language- and functional-quality.

 

• Knowledge of how to transform metric verse (Alexandrines, hexameters, among others) into understandable speech being delivered on the stage.

 

• Fundamental proficiency in oral communication, on a high artistic level.

 

• A reliable sense of what is appropriate to the occasion and a marked inclination for cooperatin.

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• The ability to formulate a precise and concrete critique in the context of respect for the actor’s performance and conditions.

 

The necessity of the apprenticeship program in relation to training as a voice coach
If you are going to teach something to others, it’s important to be able to do it yourself. For this reason, it is crucial for a voice coach to be personally familiar with what is required when making a professional appearance. This is why we have been working a lot with improving Sasha Lystrup Andersen’s voice and expression. What this has resulted in, among other things, is that she, on several occasions within the past few years, has experienced a great deal of success with presenting readings, before audiences, in professional situations.

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There is, for that matter, a pronounced case of a trade that is being practiced when we speak about teaching in linguistic communication. One practical aspect has to do with something as simple as audibility and the performer’s understanding of the lines. This is something that one learns and then teaches best by studying and working with professional people like actors, who know about and who master the various interrelations among voice, space and expression.

 

The acquisition of this kind of knowledge can only be achieved through practical work and not through traditional academic education. In this connection, it is important to point out that knowing about only one single voice methodology/school will not suffice. It is rather the case that in order to sufficiently satisfy the actors’ individual needs, it is necessary to have a broad insight into how one, with the aid of different techniques and approaches, can attain the desired result.

 

Through her studies in rhetoric at The University of Copenhagen and through her apprenticeship program here at the theater, Sasha Lystrup Andersen has managed to acquire a broad-based and thorough knowledge of the various techniques and traditions of voice training that can currently be found in this field. She couples all of this with a solid understanding of when and how these techniques and traditions ought to be applied in practice in the context of working with theatrical presentations.

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Only the apprenticeship program described above contains all the elements that have been mentioned.

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Scientific documentation
This autumn, Sasha Lystrup Andersen submitted her master’s thesis to The University of Copenhagen. Her thesis deals with the objectives and methods that have been used in speech teaching at The Royal Theater from 1886 up to the present day and also includes an appraisal of what methods have been
successful and what forms of teaching have proven, conversely, to be incompatible with drama-related work going on here at the theatre. In her thesis, there are a number of interviews with a wide assortment of actors, directors and current and former theater managers who have all been working at the theater, all of whom come with their own appraisals of what an effective speech trainer needs to be able to do in order to successfully discharge the duties of working as a speech trainer at The Royal Theatre. Upon the submission of this particular thesis, the University of Copenhagen categorized Ms. Lystrup Andersen’s work as basic research, because it sheds light on an important chapter in the development of Danish speech training, a part of history that has largely, up to the present day, been obscured.

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My recommendation
The results that Sasha Lystrup Andersen has managed to achieve through the completion of her program of apprenticeship training at The Royal Theatre, in conjunction with the knowledge she has brought along with her from her studies in rhetoric make it very easy for me to pronounce my very warmest recommendation of her as vocal coach.
It ought be mentioned, also, that Sasha Lystrup Andersen is adept at dealing with people and at meeting them wherever they happen to be.

As a teacher, she manages to combine the special professional requirements with a sincere interest in and a respect for other individuals. Something that is characteristic of her lessons, incidentally, is that there’s a lot of laughter going on.

 

A vocal coach who is in possession of her qualifications will easily be able to form part of any working context where there might be a need for a professional specialist who has a firm and thorough understanding of the voice’s function and expressive possibilities.

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A person who, with sincerity, with warmth and with respect, can give expression to her specialized angles and approaches and who can, at the same time, take professional responsibility at the highest level upon her shoulders.

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Keld Thaarup

Vocal coach at The Royal Theatre
 

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