Say It Loud: A Round Table of IBPOC Accent Coaches

Abstract

On Monday, 7 February 2022, five accent coaches gathered on Zoom for a round table discussion about accent training for racialized actors. Eric Armstrong, a professor at York University’s Department of Theatre and Performance, had invited the four guest accent/language coaches to discuss the needs of actors-in-training from Indigenous, Black, Asian, Latinx, and other communities. The coaches had all served as guest teachers for the racialized students in Armstrong’s fourth-year BFA accents class. The panellists shared their thoughts with the audience of roughly 135 on what can be done to make the teaching/learning environment both safe and effective for racialized students, and how we can build greater capacity, so that there are more coaches/teachers from diverse backgrounds in education and the industry.