Fitzmaurice Voicework: An Application for Musical Theatre Voice Training

Fitzmaurice Voicework (FV), as a technique of vocal performance, requires time and lengthy introduction to classroom material in order to encourage students’ advanced applications. The challenges of a one-semester course in musical theatre performance, taught with students of widely varying abilities, requires a total re-imagination of the introductory FV curriculum as well as the effectiveness of traditional musical theatre pedagogies. This thesis narrates the author’s journey from conception to completion of a musical theatre curriculum in which FV was not only a key component, but also the foundational technique fueling sixteen weeks of innovative curricular planning and implementation that responded in real time to student needs. Starting with an exploration of the author’s own experience in FV, from student to performer to teacher, she then explains, in depth, the two main processes of FV, namely, Destructuring and Restructuring. These physical processes, grounded in detailed understanding of anatomical realities and efficient muscular function, became the student-driven method of exploration for an entire semester of musical theatre performance education. By tracking student progress through the evaluation of vocal support, tone matching, and self-reported confidence levels, this thesis describes noticeable benefits from using FV as a foundational musical theatre technique. Further documentation of student progress and challenges indicate promising avenues for future research, in both musical theatre performance and in voice pedagogy more generally