CANCELED: WMA Conservatory- Audiobook Narration Workshop: It’s Not About the Voice

Learn about the art of audiobook storytelling from award-winning director and producer Paul Alan Ruben in this special conservatory offering.

The purpose of this SAG-AFTRA audiobook workshop is to identify fundamental performance habits, in fiction and non-fiction, that create compelling storytelling. Becoming a compelling and successful audiobook narrator, in both fiction and non-fiction, begins with recognizing that the storyteller’s job-one is 100% acting, 0% voicing.

In fiction, the fundamental performance habits that will be addressed include, identifying and playing point of view, playing the emotional stakes and matching them, playing the third-person narrator, speaking dialogue like real people, engaging the here and now, and using punctuation as your co-director. In non-fiction, these fundamental performance habits include, understanding your performance outcome as the author’s surrogate, owning your role as expert/teacher/persuader, emotionally investing yourself in ‘wowing’ the listener with this fantastic story.

Ruben has directed and produced award-winning audiobooks for every major publisher since 1990. Ruben has received two Best Spoken Word Grammy Awards and the programs he has directed have received numerous Audiofile Earphone and APA Audie Awards, including last year’s Audie-winner, Lisa Flannigan, for Spinning Silver. Over his career, Ruben has conducted narrators’ workshops and coached numerous individual narrators. He has also cast and directed multiple first-time narrators, many of whom have become household names, including, Edoardo Ballerini, Oliver Wyman, Michael Crouch, Maggi-Meg Reed, Cassandra Morris, David Ledoux, Holter Graham and Kathleen Mcinnerney.

RSVP: Reservations are required. Please complete form below to RSVP. Please note that you must be logged in to RSVP. 
Seeing this on your app? Please click here to log into the website and RSVP. 

This event is only open to paid-up SAG-AFTRA members in good standing — no guests are allowed. Parents/guardians of performers under 18 years old are welcome. SAG-AFTRA members, please bring your membership card or digital card from the app (paid through April 30, 2020) for admittance.

This workshop is not intended to imply an endorsement of any individual or company by SAG-AFTRA. The information provided through the workshop is given for informational purposes and may not be a suitable substitute for the advice of other industry professionals. You should always use good judgment in these matters and should not act or refrain from acting based solely on information provided through the workshop.