“I Speak With A What?”

When I first auditioned, I was super excited to be part of Twelve Angry Jurors. I love the whole story and even just the setting of this play. When I got a part, I was ecstatic and rushed to look at my character description and see who I would be portraying, and this is what I saw:

She is a refugee from Europe who came to this country in 1941. She speaks with an accent and …

The rest was a blur. “She speaks with a what?” I was completely astonished at the daunting task ahead of me, and I honestly had no clue if I would be able to succeed. I’ve never been particularly awful at speaking with an accent, but it wasn’t something I attempted frequently, mostly due to my fear of sounding completely and utterly stupid. However, before I could attempt to tackle this task, I had to figure out where exactly my character was from, since Europe does, in fact, cover a large span of the world.

This part was actually super fun and I really enjoyed doing the research into the background of my character. Since she came to the US in 1941, I figured she was most likely escaping from WWII and that she was Jewish. Then came the part of deciding which country she came from. Germany seemed like the obvious choice, but I decided to do more research. I quickly found that most Jews emigrating from Europe actually did not come from Germany, but rather places like Poland and the Soviet Union. I talked this through with Vivian, our director, and we decided that the Soviet Union would make the most sense, especially because in the script, my character talks a lot about the injustice that occurred in her home country, and how she’s so thankful for the democracy and freedoms of America.

Then, I had to actually learn a Russian accent. Again, I was afraid of sounding completely stupid, but Vivian assured me that, while it wouldn’t be perfect at first, it would just show me what I needed to work on, and that I would get it eventually. She gave me several sources to learn from and I looked specifically at the vowel and consonant changes that occur when speaking English with a Russian accent. Using these, I went through my script and wrote out each word as it would sound with the accent. Then I had to run through each line in my head over and over until I could eventually do it out loud. This tactic actually helped me memorize lines as well because I had to look at each word individually and figure out how a native Russian speaker would say it.

Thankfully, parts of the accent came naturally and I was able to do it without too much difficulty. However, there were some parts that caused me a little bit of trouble, and I began to refine the accent. Vivian got a recording of a native Russian speaker saying my lines, which helped a lot. Even when I had only listened to it a couple times, my accent became noticeably better and more natural. Heading into performances, I feel exceedingly comfortable with my accent and am proud of the work and time it took me to get here.

All in all, this has been a great experience and made me try something new that I wouldn’t have done otherwise. Despite the initial shock of having a character with an accent, I’m so glad that I got this part and was able to do something different than what I normally do. Working on my character challenged me greatly and made me see that I was capable of so much more than I gave myself credit for. I’m extremely proud of all the work we have been doing and am so lucky to have the support of my fellow cast members and friends!

Naomi White
Juror #11/Costumes Team