Profile

Mary Irwin is a voice, speech and text teacher based in London.

 

Originally from New Jersey,  Mary is married to Dialect and Voice Coach Ben Furey, and lives in London.  She was on the faculty of the UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC for 23 years, and now teaches at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts.

 

Her major teaching and research interests lie in the intersection of voice and text, with a primary focus on the works of William Shakespeare.  Mary was named a reader at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library and Archive in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 2016.

 

Mary is deeply invested in training and mentoring the next generation of voice and speech teachers.  This year, Mary is serving as Interim Course Leader on ALRA’s new MFA in Linklater Teaching Practice (Voice & Theatre Arts), and teaching on RCSSD’s MA/MFA in Voice Studies.  She has been privileged to assist and observe her mentor, Kristin Linklater, during the final phases of teacher trainings for Designated Linklater Teachers.

UNCSA | Head of Voice & Speech and Assistant Dean of the School of Drama

  • Professor of Drama in the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Drama from 1995-2018.
  • Twice recognized with the Excellence in Teaching Award
  • Head of Voice and Speech from 2001-2016
  • Assistant Dean, School of Drama from 2013-2016

Mary had the great privilege of co-teaching Shakespeare with the late Gerald Freedman, former UNCSA Drama Dean Emeritus, for a decade.  Together, Mary and Gerald substantially revised and expanded the Shakespeare curriculum at UNCSA.  She served as voice, text and/or dialect coach on roughly 90 UNCSA productions in total.  Shakespeare productions at UNCSA include Pericles, Hamlet, Henry V, Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Romeo and Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labors Lost, As You Like It (twice), and at least two Midsummer Night’s Dreams, one of which was performed collaboratively with the Winston-Salem Symphony playing the Mendelssohn score under Maestro Robert Moody.  Another orchestral Shakespeare outing was Much Ado About Nothing, with the UNCSA orchestra playing the Korngold score under Maestro and former UNCSA Chancellor John Mauceri.  Much Ado was televised on UNC-TV, and won an arts programming Regional Emmy Award.

Professional Voice, Text and Dialect Coach

  • King Lear, Northern Stage
  • Mac Beth, Red Bull Theater
  • The White Devil, Red Bull Theater
  • The Cost of Living, Manhattan Theatre Club (2018 Pulitzer Prize Winner, Drama; 2018 Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play, Gregg Mozgala)
  • And So We Walked: An Artist’s Journey Along the Trail of Tears, Triad Stage
  • Our Town, Palm Beach DramaWorks
  • Master Harold … and the boys, Triad Stage
  • Noises Off, Triad Stage
  • The Dresser, with John & J.D. Cullum, Clarence Brown Theatre
  • Misalliance, Alabama Shakespeare Festival
  • The Merchant of Venice, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival
  • Twelfth Night, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival
  • Julius Caesar, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival
  • The Taming of the Shrew, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival
  • The Comedy of Errors, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival
  • Much Ado About Nothing, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival
  • King Lear, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival
  • Actors Mary has worked with include: Jolly Abraham, Dylan Arnold, Erich Bergen, Starla Benford, Cassandra Bissell, Rajesh Bose, Anna Camp, Molly Carden, Adelaide Clemens, William Connell, Dane DeHaan, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Isabelle Fuhrman, Robert David Grant, Jamie Horton, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Jake Lacy, Sophie Kelly-Hedrick, Elizabeth Lail, Jenn Lyon, Billy Magnussen, Jonathan Majors, Ashley Austin Morris, Gregg Mozgala, AnnaSophia Robb, Jon Norman Schneider, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Hanley Smith, Cherene Snow, DeLanna Studi, Wesley Taylor, Damian Thompson, Anna Wood

Other Teaching

  • The Academy of Live & Recorded Arts, London
  • The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London
  • The Laura Henry Studio in Santa Monica, CA
  • Red Bull Theater’s Shakespeare and Jacobean Workshops
  • Cherokee Summer Co-Laboratory Storytelling Workshop in the Education Dept. of the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Cherokee, NC
  • Guest teacher of Shakespeare text and voice pedagogy at Sarah Lawrence College.

Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts at UNCSA

Mary has received substantial support from the Kenan Institute on numerous projects.  In 2011, she appeared as Gertrude in an orchestral Hamlet, directed by UNCSA Faculty member Quin Gordon, at the Aspen Music Festival.  The Shostakovich score was conducted by Maestro John Mauceri. Mary received a Kenan Faculty Leadership Grant,  and most recently collaborated with Kenan Institute Executive Director Corey Madden and Cherokee writer/performer DeLanna Studi, on And So We Walked: An Artist’s Journey Along the Trail of Tears.  She was invited to teach a workshop at Shakespeare’s Globe in London during the summer 2000 season, through the Kenan funded program, Shakespeare Lives.

Education + Studies

  • Designated Linklater Voice Teacher
  • MA in Voice Studies from the Central School of Speech and Drama, London
  • BA in Liberal Studies (summa cum laude) from New York University
  • Linklater Voice with Kristin Linklater, Clyde Vinson, Andrea Haring and others
  • Meisner Technique with Laura Henry
  • Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute (studied with Lee Strasberg)