Catherine Fitzmaurice

Catherine Fitzmaurice is the originator of Fitzmaurice Voicework, "a comprehensive approach to voice training" that is taught in acting schools, studios, workshops, and private lessons throughout the United States and the world. The January 2010 issue of American Theatre magazine (published by the Theatre Communications Group) calls Fitzmaurice one of "the great lions of the field of voice work in the U.S." and one of the "visionary innovators in the craft" of voice training for actors. Over the past thirty-five years, she has "become one of the half-dozen most influential voice teachers in the theatre," whose "legacy and enduring influence are secure." The Voice and Speech Trainers Association invited Fitzmaurice to its 2009 National Conference—along with Arthur Lessac, Kristin Linklater, and Patsy Rodenburg—as one of the "foremost vocal teachers of our time."

Born in India, Fitzmaurice began acting at the age of three. At the age of seven, her family moved to England and then Ireland, and she attended English boarding schools in Surrey and Hertfordshire. From age eleven to seventeen, she studied voice, speech, verse-speaking, and acting with Barbara Bunch, who had also taught Cicely Berry as a teenager. Fitzmaurice went on to win a three-year scholarship at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where she earned numerous honors and distinctions. While studying at Central, she also took first place in the English Festival of Spoken Poetry. Upon completion or her training, Fitzmaurice returned to Central in 1965 as a teacher of Voice, Verse-Speaking, and Prose-Reading.

While living in London, Fitzmaurice met her future husband, David Kozubei, who at one point worked as a manager of the "underground wing" of Better Books then on Charing Cross Road. Kozubei introduced Fitzmaurice to the works of Wilhelm Reich, which Fitzmaurice first explored through a group Kozubei had founded "to study Reich’s work in a practical way" (including his own method of muscle tension reduction called "Movements"). Fitzmaurice’s curiosity led her to study bioenergetic analysis (or “Bioenergetics”) with Dr. Alexander Lowen and Malcolm Brown, the latter of which she worked with until she relocated to the United States in 1968. After taking up residency in Ann Arbor, Michigan – where she earned a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Theatre Studies from the University of Michigan – Fitzmaurice continued to explore Reich’s work with several of Reich's trainees, including Dr. John Pierrakos. Fitzmaurice began to practice yoga in 1972, and her interest in "body-based disciplines and energy work" soon had her exploring shiatsu, meditation, and healing techniques as well as traditional voice and speech pedagogy. Fitzmaurice also holds Certificates from the International Phonetic Association and from the completion of "several bodywork and healing energy trainings," including certification as a Somatic Therapist.

...
Wikipedia