We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Peter Marciano. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Peter below.
Peter, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I am currently co-writing a book about voice and speech. I am writing it with a very good friend, colleague, and former professor of mine, Louis Colaianni. We are on the final edit now and it’s been years in the making, from writing in coffee shops to meetings across the globe, to video calls during lock down, to visiting each other across the country to get it done. It’s revolutationary. It’s provocative. I am so excited that we are writing it. The main through point is your voice is your own standard. We all have accents and to say that one accent is “right” has wildly negative connotations. Your voice is what you put out into the world so take ownership of your words. Breath is at the center of the book. Breathing to connect to yourself and to your environment and others around you. In a world where it is so easy to disconnect or to go through something, I think it’s important for people to acknowledge and go into it. Into the reality of self.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I started out as an actor, attending The Actors Studio Drama School for my MFA. My teachers were astounding humans who really encourage me and gave me vocabulary to speak about the performing arts. I left school and needed a break from acting because I spent three years in deep study of it. It was wonderful and maddening. I bartended and waited tables and after a year of just that I was miserable because I wasn’t doing any art. Voice and Movement classes were my favorite in school because I felt like myself but multiplied, so I started working with a voice and speech teacher and then finally got designated to teach by Kristin Linklater. She allowed me to discover my greatest strength, empathy, and taught me my style of teach, gentle rigor. We can work but we also must play. I love when students and clients want to work.There will be a day when I work 8 or 9 hours but I was surrounded by people who genuinely care and want to work with me and that provides me with the stamina and momentum to work, and it felt like only an hour or two has passed.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Just one note. breathe. It can change a person. I love seeing people connect to themselves whether it’s behind a podium or on stage or film. I love seeing my eighteen year old students as first years in school evolve into a different version of themselves by the time they graduate four years later. Yes, I know I helped them but I’m more proud of them because they wanted to be helped. When I’m hired by a company to coach someone on a speech or by an actor for a film or play, the fact they invest in their craft is something I wish the world could see. I celebrate the art of passionate, eloquent communication. A great friend of mine and I own our own production company, Stormsellers Inc, and our first show was Julius Caesar. We had nine, that’s right, nine days of rehearsals. We were crazy, maybe still are. BUT seeing the actors change from a video read through to the final performance was magic.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
My book list… I love Diane Ackerman’s book The Natural History of the Senses. Each chapter speaks about one of the senses and it is specific and poetic. I’ve probably read it a dozen times. Antonio Demasio is a neurobiologist who wrote a very user friendly book called The Feeling of What Happens; it focuses on the relationship between emotion and the physical body. Oh and that goes in line with The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. Everyone should read that book. The plays of Stephen Adly Guirgis are filled with profound truths about humanity, and are also wildly entertaining. He’s one of the great playwrights.
In term of books, just pick one up and read. OH and libraries, I wouldn’t be anywhere with out the public library system.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @4petermarciano
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-marciano-059248197/
