Some of my clients are surprised to learn that in addition to being a speech therapist, I am also an actor. Primarily, I work in theatre. As I write this, I am in Thunder Bay, Ontario, performing in a production of No Man’s Land by Harold Pinter, originally written in the 1970s and currently being remounted by a regional theatre company in Northern Ontario.
Being immersed in rehearsals and performances while simultaneously continuing to see some of my clients virtually has given me a renewed appreciation for how deeply these two parts of my life inform one another. The overlap between acting and speech therapy is much larger than people often imagine. At their core, both fields are about communication, connection, attention, and the relationship between the body, the voice, and the nervous system. When people think about acting, they often imagine confidence or charisma or outlandish performances. When people think about speech therapy, they often imagine articulation drills or exercises. But in reality, both acting and speech therapy involve learning how to communicate authentically under varying levels of pressure. Both require awareness, open flexibility, and a willingness to tolerate feeling vulnerable.
Learning to Respect Vocal Demands
One of the biggest areas where acting informs my clinical work is vocal care.
When I am in a show, I have to think carefully about my vocal demands throughout the day. If I know that later that evening I will be standing in front of a room full of people speaking for two hours, I have to make decisions that protect my voice. I cannot spend the night before yelling in a loud bar. I cannot ignore fatigue. I cannot endlessly push through strain and assume my voice will simply cooperate. Professional actors become very aware that the voice is physical. It is not separate from the body. Sleep affects it. Hydration affects it. Stress affects it. Alcohol affects it. Reflux affects it. Anxiety affects it. Tension affects it.
This awareness directly shapes the way I work with clients, especially clients with voice concerns or high vocal demands at work. Many adults live as though the voice should function independently of everything else happening in their lives. They expect it to perform consistently regardless of stress, exhaustion, illness, or tension. But the voice does not work that way.
A teacher who has been speaking for eight hours while stressed and underslept may notice vocal fatigue. A lawyer preparing for court may notice throat tension. A person navigating social anxiety may notice their throat tightening during conversation. None of these experiences occur in isolation. Being an actor constantly reminds me that communication is embodied. We speak with our respiratory system, our muscles, our posture, our hearing, our attention, and our emotional state all at once.
Why Warm Ups Matter
Another overlap between acting and speech therapy is warm ups.
Before rehearsals and performances, I warm up my voice and body. Interestingly, many of the exercises I use are the same ones I use with clients. I do semi occluded vocal tract exercises, often bubbling into a cup with a straw. I do stretches. I do laryngeal massage. I work on breath coordination and resonance. Sometimes I spend time simply trying to reduce unnecessary tension before I even begin speaking. One thing acting reinforces for me is that warm ups are not only for people with a “problem.” Professional performers warm up because human communication is demanding. Athletes warm up before activity because we understand that physical systems work better when prepared. Yet many people feel strange or self-conscious about warming up their voices.
I sometimes have clients express reservations of what may seem like “strange” exercises I am getting them to try. It feels outside their comfort zone. But performers know that preparation is normal. Warm ups are not evidence of weakness. They are evidence that communication is physical and dynamic. Even beyond voice work, actors warm up because communication requires presence. A good warm up helps bring attention into the body and into the moment. That same principle applies in therapy. Sometimes improving communication is not about forcing harder. Sometimes it is about creating the conditions under which communication can happen more freely.
Active Listening Is a Skill
Acting has also deepened my appreciation for active listening.
In this particular production, there are long stretches on stage where very little outward action occurs. The play depends heavily on subtext, attention, silences, and tension. During rehearsals, I often had to remind myself not to simply wait for my next line, but to truly engage with the other actor. To listen actively. To respond genuinely. To remain present. This is something I think about often in clinical work, especially with clients working on social communication, conversational flow, confidence, or interpersonal connection.
Many people understandably approach conversation from a performance mindset. They focus intensely on what they are going to say next, whether they sound awkward, whether they are making enough eye contact, whether they are saying the “right” thing, or whether they are being judged. But communication often becomes more natural when attention shifts outward instead of inward. One of the paradoxes of communication is that conversations often improve when we become less focused on monitoring ourselves and more focused on genuine curiosity about the other person. Actors learn this constantly. A scene becomes flat when someone is only thinking about their own performance. A scene becomes alive when there is real listening and real responsiveness.
This does not mean social communication challenges are simply solved by “relaxing” or “being yourself.” Many clients I work with are navigating anxiety, neurodivergence, communication differences, past negative experiences, or high-pressure environments. These are real and meaningful challenges. But acting has helped me appreciate just how much communication depends on attention and relational engagement rather than perfect wording.
Performance Anxiety and Communication
Another major overlap is performance anxiety. People sometimes assume actors stop getting nervous. In reality, many actors continue to experience nerves before performances. You simply develop a different relationship with the feeling.
Before going on stage, I still notice physiological changes. Increased heart rate. Adrenaline. Muscle tension. Sometimes even self-doubt. The goal is not to eliminate these sensations completely, but to function alongside them. This informs how I work with clients experiencing communication anxiety, whether in presentations, meetings, interviews, or social interactions. Often people believe confidence must come first before communication can improve. But in many cases, confidence develops afterward through repeated experiences of successfully communicating despite discomfort.
Acting teaches you that nerves and effective communication can coexist. You do not necessarily need to feel perfectly calm in order to connect with people meaningfully. In fact, sometimes trying too aggressively to eliminate anxiety can actually increase it. Instead, performers often focus on preparation, grounding, attention, pacing, breath, and connection to the material. These same principles often help in communication contexts outside the theatre as well.
Working With Dialects and Accents
This production has also given me a new appreciation for accent expansion work, as it involved dialect work. For this show, I had to work with a dialect different from my own. That process required careful listening and analysis. I had to notice vowel differences, rhythm differences, and consonant changes. In many ways, this process is somewhat similar to the work I do with clients seeking accent expansion services. It requires breaking speech into smaller components while still maintaining natural communication. Actors are constantly shifting speech patterns depending on character and setting. Multilingual speakers often do something very similar in everyday life. As a clinician, this perspective helps me approach accent work with respect and collaboration rather than correction. An accent is not a defect. Sometimes clients simply want greater flexibility in certain professional or social environments.
Speaking in a Second Language
Perhaps one of the most personally meaningful moments during this experience was taking part in a radio interview in French, which is not my first language.
Even though I am comfortable with French, speaking publicly in a non-native language creates a very different cognitive and emotional experience. I noticed myself searching for words more consciously. Monitoring grammar more carefully. Feeling less automatic. Feeling slightly slower. Feeling more vulnerable to mistakes. It reminded me very quickly what many of my clients experience every day when communicating in English when it is not their first language.
When you are speaking in a less familiar language, communication can require immense cognitive effort. You may know exactly what you want to say but struggle to retrieve it efficiently. You may worry about pronunciation, pacing, or how others perceive you. You may feel that your personality is not fully represented because expressing nuance takes more effort. Experiencing this firsthand again was humbling. It reinforced for me that communication is not simply about linguistic knowledge.
Why Acting Makes Me a Better Speech Therapist
Ultimately, acting continues to make me a better speech therapist because it keeps me connected to the lived experience of communication. It reminds me that communication is not merely technical. It is deeply human. It reminds me that listening matters and that anxiety changes the body. It reinforces in me that preparation helps and that even people who communicate professionally can still work on these skills.
Acting and speech therapy both involve helping people connect more fully with others. I think that is one of the reasons I continue to value both professions so deeply. Both ask us to pay attention. Both ask us to tolerate uncertainty and vulnerability. And both, at their best, help people feel more understood.
