How the cast of the Tony-nominated "The Hills of California" worked to get the accents right
The Tony-nominated "The Hills of California" transports the audience to Blackpool, England, a seaside community with a distinct accent.
Actor Allison Jean White said she transformed her speech, word by word, to portray Veronica, the mother of the four daughters.
"One of the sounds that I knew for sure sort of all northern, is the 'uh' sound, like in cup. It becomes 'uh' like 'coop' and 'Soonday.' So I just made those sound changes in my script," White said.
Before voice and accent coach Ashleigh Reade taught the cast how to sound like they were from Blackpool, she had to learn the accent for herself.
She said, "I started looking for sound samples, looking for native speakers of this accent, starting to put materials together."
Repeatedly watching a city council meeting in Blackpool was a key part of the process.
The piece goes back and forth in time, from the 50s, when the mother of four girls pushes them to become a singing group with an American accent, to the 70s, when the adult siblings return home to care for their ailing mother.
Reade said watching how the actors say the dialogue also helped her coach the performers.
She would tell them, "I need you to take those lip corners and pin them back just a little bit. Your tongue is sitting a little low in your mouth. Those kinds of physical changes change the acoustic result of the sound."
White said, "One of the beauties of theater is creating this different world and accents are a way we get to shape that world."
"If I've done a good job," said Reade, "you will not know I'm there because it's not distracting. It just uplifts everybody and creates this world of the play that you didn't even have to think about. It just is."
You can check out the accent work for yourself. "The Hills of California" is at the Huntington Theatre in Boston through October 12th.