Janet Madelle Feindel
Janet Madelle Feindel began teaching in the School of Drama in 1996 and was a tenured full professor of Voice and Alexander Technique. She also coached dialects on the CMU stages. Feindel spent the 2008-2009 as Visiting Professor and consultant at the School of Theatre, Film and Television at UCLA.
Her coaching credits include: co-coaching on Merchant of Venice, Jew of Malta with Cicely Berry, CBE, for Theatre for a New Audience, NYC, starring Academy Award Recipient F. Murray Abraham. Subsequently, Merchant played at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works Festival. Mr. Abraham hired Feindel as his Alexander Coach, utilizing funds from Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship.
Other credits include: Stratford Festival (including Voice and Alexander for Birmingham Conservatory); Shaw Festival, (also Principal of the Academy); Canadian Stage Company’s Shakespeare in the Park; Quantum Theatre, Pittsburgh Public, The Rep and many years working in regional theatres as an actress at Stratford, Manitoba Theatre, Theatre Calgary and many others. Film/TV/radio credits include: The Old Guy; US Queer As Folk; Dream Team; Street Legal; Love and Hate and coaching Brian Bedford for his preparation for Nixon (Oliver Stone).
Her book, The Thought Propels the Sound, is published by Plural Publishing, with enthusiastic reviews in the US: American Theatre Magazine; Voice and Speech Trainers Journal; the UK: British Voice Association (BVA); and Society for Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT) and New Zealand: Toi Wakaari. She has published articles internationally: “Voice/Acting and the Alexander Technique”; “Alexander Directed for Actors” in The Congress on the F. M. Alexander Technique Papers, published by STAT, London, UK, (2005, 2009); a chapter in Performer’s Voice, “Alexander Technique and Strategies for Addressing Vocal Tension”, Plural Publishing; Lo Straniero, Italy; also Canada’s Globe & Mail Book Reviews Section (Weekend/National Edition); Canadian Theatre Review and her play A Particular Class of Women, appears in Singular Voices, Canada Playwrights Press. Initially, she performed her play in venues in Canada and the US, including the WOW café in NYC, Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo, NY; Edmonton Fringe; Bathurst Street Theatre, Toronto; Great Canadian Theatre, Ottawa; and Bastion Theatre, Victoria, B.C. Her play has also been produced in Canada and the US, and in Rome, Italy, first in English and then in Italian at Teatro Inglese, then Teatro Colesseo.
Feindel has presented at conferences internationally including the Choice for Voice (BVA/Guildhall School), London, UK; Voice/Speech Trainers Association (VASTA), Montreal; Pacific Voice Foundation (Los Angeles, Santa Clara, CA); Care of the Professional Voice Symposium, Philadelphia, PA; Canadian Voice Care Symposium, Banff, Canada; International Congress on the F. M. Alexander Technique (Oxford, UK and Lugano, Switzerland); Alexander Technique International, (ATI) Budapest, Hungary; Lugano, Switzerland; Philadelphia. She has led workshops for Alexander Training programs in Toronto, Germany and for Montreal Yoga Festival. Feindel is a Designated Linklater Voice teacher, Certified in the Fitzmaurice Voice and is certified in the Alexander Technique (ATI); the International Somatic Movement Educators Therapists Association and certified with Yoga Alliance (200 hour).
Photograph by Karen Waggoner.