Dawn-Elin Fraser started dancing when she was six years old and knew from then that she wanted a career in the arts. After studying musical theater during undergrad at San Francisco State University, Fraser pursued her MFA in acting because she wanted to perform more Shakespeare. One graduate course steered her path to her job today: a dialect coach with 18 Broadway credits to her name and a professor and head of voice and speech at New York University.
Fraser has possessed an affinity for speech and dialect since high school, where, as a performer, she said, “I’d give my characters an accent every time I had the chance.” While in grad school at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Fraser’s first speech class had her hooked. She was excited about growing her skills in speech, dialect and text. Professors Jeffrey Crockett and Deborah Sussel mentored her.
As part of her training, Fraser learned the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as well as strategies to break down dialects. After graduate school, Fraser became certified in the Knight-Thompson Speechwork methodology, which, Fraser said, “is a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach to speech and accent training.”
Fraser established a solid coaching practice in San Francisco, but moved to New York City in 2010 when she was recruited for her position at NYU. “No city in the country has more opportunities for what I do than New York,” she noted. Indeed, within five years of moving to New York, Fraser landed her first Broadway gig — as dialect coach for “Finding Neverland.” Since then, Fraser has lent her skills to 17 Main Stem productions — “Othello” starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal will make it 18 this spring. Depending on the show, Fraser is credited as voice coach, diction coach and dialect coach — but her duties are always grounded in speech.
She’s ensured language authenticity for such shows as “Once on This Island,” “Tina,” “Parade,” “Here Lies Love” and the currently running “Suffs” and “Hamilton,” the latter for which she serves all North American productions. But what are the ins and outs of her job? Fraser tells Broadway News below.
