Giving Voice to New Partnerships
Building bridges between School of Communication disciplines fortifies the school, strengthens departments, and fosters the creation of new knowledge. Three new partnerships between the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and the Department of Theatre are producing dramatic advancements in research, performance, and community engagement.
“We have so much potential,” says CSD chair Bharath Chandrasekaran, the Ralph and Jean Sundin Endowed Professor. “The fields of speech-language pathology and audiology themselves are changing, and there’s a real shift from a deficit focus to strength-based approaches. That’s where I see our departmental intersections have the potential to put us in the forefront of the field.”
Promoting actors’ vocal health
The intense demands of performing in a musical can wreak havoc on an actor’s singing voice. No one knows that better than KO, the School of Communication’s Donald G. Robinson Director of Music Theatre and a Tony Award–winning actor-singer.
“I’ve been in a situation where I have a whole Broadway theater that’s expecting me to be on stage,” she says, “and these things”—pointing to their vocal cords—“are not doing the right thing. I’d go see a doctor, and the doctor’s like, ‘Don’t sing.’ And then of course, as you can imagine, your brain melts.”
With health and longevity topmost in mind, KO and the Department of Theatre have teamed up with clinicians and students at the Northwestern University Center for Audiology, Speech, Language, and Learning (NUCASLL) and Northwestern Memorial Hospital to create a program providing all music theatre certificate program undergraduates with endoscopic exams, hearing screenings, and speech health assessments to monitor vocal functions and promote wellness just as their performing careers are warming up.
“Our theatre students are professional voice users—they’re like athletes, right?” says Nathan Waller, associate clinical professor and director of speech, language, and learning at NUCASLL. “So because of that, they have a higher risk of voice problems. With this program, they’ll have their speech, voice, and hearing looked at and screened in case we need to make recommendations for further assessment. This will be great information for their voice teachers to know as well, in case we can do anything else therapeutically that can help them.”
The program is designed to be mutually beneficial to both theatre undergrads and CSD graduate students in the master’s in speech, language, and learning and doctor of audiology programs, who can assist with the endoscopic exams and administer the hearing tests and assessments. The exercises will enhance not only their clinical studies but also their bedside manner, patient interactions, and understanding of protocols.
During the pilot program in April, 17 second-year students accepted into the music theatre certificate program participated in the three-part screenings. They received a hearing test; took a vocal assessment to gauge use, habits, and possible voice stressors; and sat for a laryngeal screening administered by Jim Burns, chief of the laryngology division of the Feinberg School of Medicine’s otolaryngology–head and neck surgery department. Burns sprayed each student’s throat with a numbing solution before inserting a scope bearing a tiny high-quality camera and guiding it toward their vocal cords. The camera documented what happened as the students were coached through a few simple vocal exercises. Each session was recorded and immediately played back—leaving the students universally awestruck.
“Oh my gosh, that’s so crazy!” said Veronica Gonzalez,
now a rising junior, as she watched her vocal cords (which, coincidentally, resemble stage curtains opening and closing) move, vibrate, and thicken as she changed pitch. Burns noted that her cords were healthy, and she had no nodules or cysts. With a clean bill of vocal health (and a hearing test passed easily), Gonzalez walked away with a better understanding of what it takes to stay at her peak.
“It was really cool,” Gonzalez said after her screening. “I can now understand visually what I need to do and how I need to work the instrument differently when using my chest belt voice versus my head voice.”
With the pilot a success, the departments hope to roll out a permanent program that could take place during Wildcat Welcome, the annual first-year student orientation that kicks off fall quarter. All theatre students could be screened upon entry and then assisted in developing a vocal wellness and checkup schedule for the remainder of their time at Northwestern.
The program is poised to put NUCASLL and Feinberg at the forefront of this growing subspecialty of rehab sciences for performers. “These conversations allow us to enhance our voice pedagogy and make Northwestern the go-to center for vocal artists,” Chandrasekaran says. “That’s what we’re building toward, and I see very high promise”—for growth in the field as well as for patient and performer outcomes.
“This is going to get students thinking about vocal health immediately, and it’s going to become a part of their practice,” KO says. “They’re also about to start using their voices in a very different and more regimented way. It’s physical therapy for the voice, and we wanted to expose students to this at a point when they’re not in peril.”
Improv as stuttering therapy
Children who stutter often avoid spontaneity and risk-taking. But faculty in the School of Communication are helping this community embrace the unexpected with a hearty “yes, and.”
Last academic year, CSD assistant clinical professor Elisha Boxer Magnifico and theatre assistant professor and head of acting David Catlin (C88) launched Break the Blocks, a series of three 90-minute improv workshops for 10- to 18-year-olds who stutter. The program helped them come out of their shells—and, just as important, helped them feel comfortable with how words come out of their mouths.
“With stuttering, so much of it is a fear and avoidance with certain words, sounds, or situations,” Magnifico says. “And to some extent, these kids need experiences where they’ve just gone for it. It used to be that all you did was teach strategies for overcoming the stutter, and then people were supposed to be perfectly fluent, right?” Now, instead of treating a stutter as a disorder in need of a cure, clinicians approach stuttering as a common element of fluency—something that everyone does throughout language development and that we become more comfortable with the more we practice. In the case of Break the Blocks, the practice is improv.
“With more traditional theatre, if it’s a rehearsed line, for example, a person who stutters is likely to be less disfluent because it’s very predictable,” Magnifico says. “They can practice it, there’s less of a cognitive load, and they’re naturally going to be more successful. Whereas with improv, when you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next, you react and join in; you can’t avoid it in the same way or plan or rehearse. You just have to go with it.”
Northwestern and improv go way back (see this issue's Mee-Ow Show reunion story), but as Catlin points out, it’s not always about comedy. “We use improv as a tool for investigation and ensemble building,” he says. “It’s also a big part of our educational and community programs.”
Catlin is a founding ensemble member of Chicago’s famed Lookingglass Theatre Company, known for bold, experimental, and highly collaborative works. The seeds of Lookingglass germinated when Catlin and his cofounders were Northwestern theatre students experimenting with improv and other performance styles. “When Elisha had this idea, it all made sense to me,” he explains, “and I felt like I understood how I could help be a part of it.”
Catlin and Magnifico led the workshops in collaboration with theatre students and master’s students in speech, language, and learning (one of whom is a former theatre undergraduate). The kids in attendance were encouraged to participate in the exercises but not pressured to do so. Yet Magnifico and Catlin noticed how by the third workshop each of the kids was invested.
“You could see the spark of them having fun and beginning to take risks,” Magnifico says. “Some of them verbalized during the group sessions that it ‘feels so nice to be around other people who are going through the same thing as me.’”
The program will return this academic year and likely expand in both participant numbers and age range. Magnifico and Catlin are discussing other options that include using peer instructors and incorporating music.
“Being able to take what I think we do well in theatre and what Elisha and her colleagues do well with speech therapies and to combine both of those is just so exciting to me,” Catlin says. “It opens up the way I think about what we do, and the power of what theatre can be, and the connectivity of what is being researched in the school.”
The School of Communication’s renewed focus on community building and interdisciplinary partnerships means that programs like Break the Blocks will grow and thrive—helping populations long forgotten or ignored to take center stage.
“We talk a lot about neurodiversity, but stuttering is just part of verbal diversity,” Magnifico says. “And we want kids to have positive experiences and do things that put themselves out there, to get them to realize, ‘I can talk in front of all these people and say something that’s not planned.’”
“And if I stutter a little,” she adds, “that’s okay.”
Enriching infant development through theatre
Northwestern is the birthplace of children’s theatre, now known as theatre for young audiences. Winifred Ward (C1905) pioneered the concept a century ago when, as a professor, she created the Children’s Theatre of Evanston. And in the spirit of her legacy, scholars are opening the field to an even younger untapped audience: infants and toddlers.
Theatre professor Rives Collins, radio/television/film professor of instruction Stephan Moore, and CSD clinical professor Stacy Kaplan, director of the master’s and doctoral programs in speech-language pathology, have partnered to develop theatre programming for the very young—a field that has been growing in popularity globally but has yet to substantially catch on here in the US. That’s about to change.
“Sparking Connections with the Very Young: Performance, Research, and Community Engagement through Sensory Theatre Practice” was the third on-campus symposium of the annual CommConnections faculty collaboration series. Held last winter, the gathering fleshed out how using theatre talent, CSD expertise, and imaginative RTVF sound design to focus on a crucial developmental stage can have profoundly positive effects on children’s learning and socialization outcomes.
“Young people, even ones who haven’t learned how to talk, are invited to be part of theatre; they are brought into the action,” says Collins. “We have the potential to create a national model of excellence.”
Hamlet—or even Harold and the Purple Crayon—this is not. Immersive and interactive, the experience-driven theatrical works cater to children from birth to five years of age. The performances eschew narrative arc in favor of vibrant visuals, compelling sound, and enriching human interplay that allow developing brains to absorb new sensory experiences at pivotal stages.
According to Kaplan, 5 to 10 percent of the US population—including about 4 percent of Illinois infants and toddlers—have a communication disorder. Thus early intervention is key, and theatrical experiences that research, diagnose, and treat communication disorders can become a useful part of those interventions.
“What does this mean in terms of theatre for the very young?” Kaplan asked at the event. “The work that we do as speech pathologists is getting down on the floor and playing. The play is the work. So, we’re going to intervene in that work and invite them into communication.”
Her hope is that future clinicians involved in these productions will help enhance the experience with their own expertise—and let the process of engagement make them more empathetic, interested, and helpful caregivers.
“I’m excited about what will happen in these spaces if students don’t have to worry about the science of their practice but simply about engaging, flexing, and improvising,” says Kaplan. “Hopefully their clinical development will increase because they will learn to be present in the moment with their patients.”
Last spring, Collins organized and hosted a weekend event celebrating Winfred Ward and showcasing Northwestern’s eminence in theatre for young and very young audiences. Expert talks, demonstrations, and original performances explored what’s next for the field and why Northwestern is the perfect playground where it can thrive.
Ever-widening benefits
The new partnerships between theatre and CSD are a strategic move by Dean E. Patrick Johnson, who finds that clinical and creative breakthroughs are most successful at disciplinary intersections. Serendipitously, the CSD department recently received support for outreach-fostering programs through the Su Family Community Impact Fund, made possible by the support of Patricia Kou and Victor Su (McCormick 95).
“It really adds value that CSD is in the School of Communication, where creative expression and communication are thought of in very different ways,” says Chandrasekaran. “Our faculty are clearly feeling the benefit of these connections.”
Northwestern students and the surrounding community are feeling it too.