Verse Coaching

If you love theater, there’s a good chance you love Shakespeare. Most of us do, and it’s always a fun litmus test to ask which of his plays people like best.

A verse coach plays a crucial role in a Shakespearean production. The language is designed to be delivered in a certain way, and with a rhythm that’s sometimes about iambic pentameter and sometimes not. The brilliance of Shakespeare is that his language tells you its own rhythm. It’s all built in.

I was lucky enough to be taught this very well, but unfortunately, it came from a Shakespeare professor who was a real bully. That’s a story for another day. Anyway, he doesn’t get all the credit for my education in verse and poetry. The fact is, if you don’t study poetry far more than in your “Acting Shakespeare” classes, it’s going to be hard to pick up all the subtle things about rhyme, sound, and meter that make poetry so effective.

So, I’ll also give credit to my amazing, inspiring, and kind poetry professor John Hollander. And to Leslie Brisman and Geoffrey Hartman and Art Williams and Rodney Allen and Karen Cole. And even to my folk ballad-reciting father, who first taught me to appreciate rhyme and meter.

So if you need a verse coach, call me. It would be a waste not to pass on this top-quality coaching that I was so lucky to receive.