{{Short description|Scottish vocal coach (1936–2020)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2024}} {{Infobox person | image = Kristin Linklater in 2017.jpg | caption = Linklater in 2017 | name = Kristin Linklater | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1936|4|22}} | birth_place = Edinburgh, Scotland | death_date = {{death date and age|2020|6|5|1936|4|22|df=y}} | death_place = Housegarth, Orkney, Scotland | occupation = Actress, director, author, vocal coach, acting teacher | alma_mater = London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art | children = Hamish Linklater | parents = Eric Linklater<br>Marjorie MacIntyre | relatives = Magnus Linklater (brother) <br> Andro Linklater (brother) | website = {{URL|http://www.linklatervoice.com/}} }} '''Kristin Linklater''' (22 April 1936 – 5 June 2020) was a Scottish vocal coach, acting teacher, actor, theatre director, and author. She retired from the Theatre Arts Division of Columbia University where she was professor emerita. She taught residential courses in Orkney.
==Biography== Born in Edinburgh<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McCance |first1=Dawne |title=Crossings: An Interview with Kristin Linklater |journal=Mosaic |date=2011 |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=1–45 |doi=10.1353/mos.2014.0000 |s2cid=201790932 |id={{Project MUSE|418757}} }}</ref> and brought up in the Orkney Isles, Scotland, Linklater trained with Michael MacOwan and Iris Warren at LAMDA.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Linklater |first1=Kristin |title=Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the Practice of Voice and Language |date=2006 |publisher=Drama Pub |isbn=978-0-89676-250-3 |oclc=76888011 }}{{page needed|date=November 2023}}{{primary source inline|date=November 2023}}</ref> After graduating from LAMDA, she taught voice there for six years.<ref name="genzlinger">{{cite news |last1=Genzlinger |first1=Neil |title=Kristin Linklater, Who Made Actors Their Vocal Best, Dies at 84 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/theater/kristin-linklater-vocal-coach-dies.html |work=The New York Times |date=16 June 2020 }}</ref> During the 1960s, she relocated to the United States and worked with the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada.<ref name="KristinLinklater.com-Backstory">[http://www.kristinlinklater.com/backstory.htm "KristinLinklater.com–Backstory"]{{primary source inline|date=November 2023}}</ref> Between 1964 and 1978, she worked as a vocal coach for acting companies led by Robert Whitehead, Harold Clurman, Elia Kazan, and Joseph Chaikin, among others.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Linklater |first1=Kristin |title=Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the Practice of Voice and Language |date=2006 |publisher=Drama Pub |isbn=978-0-89676-250-3 |oclc=76888011 }}{{page needed|date=November 2023}}{{primary source inline|date=November 2023}}</ref> Linklater also taught voice in New York University's graduate theater program from 1965 to 1978.<ref name="genzlinger"/>
Educated at St Leonards School and Downe House School, she was a founding member in 1973 of Shakespeare & Company which was for many years in residence on the former estate of Edith Wharton in Lenox, Massachusetts. Linklater and several British-trained American actors founded the acting troupe of the same name, Shakespeare & Company. She served as co-director, with Tina Packer. She left in the mid-1990s to develop her own approach to voice for actors, influenced by her teachers at LAMDA as well as the Alexander Technique. Her work was designed to liberate the natural function of the vocal mechanism as opposed to developing a vocal technique.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Her writings on voice included ''Freeing the Natural Voice'' (1976) ({{ISBN|0-89676-071-5}}) and ''Freeing Shakespeare's Voice''. (1992); ({{ISBN|1-55936-031-3}})
She was of partial Swedish descent, through her father, Scottish novelist Eric Linklater.<ref name=Keay>Keay, J. & Keay, J. (1994) ''Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland''. London. HarperCollins.</ref>
Linklater trained many well-known actors, including Sir Patrick Stewart, Donald Sutherland, Alfre Woodard, Mary Tyler Moore, Bill Murray, Angela Bassett, Courtney Vance, Sigourney Weaver, Sam Rockwell and Bernadette Peters. Linklater was a teacher and head of the Acting program at Emerson College from 1990 to 1996.<ref>[http://arts.columbia.edu/node/1662 Linklater profile], Columbia University faculty page; accessed 13 May 2014.</ref> While at Emerson, Linklater and Harvard psychologist Carol Gilligan led a group called the Company of Women, which explored Shakespeare from a woman's point of view.<ref name="genzlinger"/>
In 2013, Linklater established the Linklater Voice Centre in Quoyloo, Orkney, Scotland, to train and coach students in voice technique. That year she was made an honorary fellow of the University of the Highlands and Islands.<ref name="mills">{{cite news |last1=Mills |first1=Joan |title=Kristin Linklater obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jun/24/kristin-linklater-obituary |work=The Guardian |date=24 June 2020 }}</ref>
Her son by James Lincoln Cormeny<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=169008608|title = James Lincoln Cormeny Obituary (2014) New York Times| website=Legacy.com }}</ref> is actor Hamish Linklater, who starred in the hit Netflix miniseries ''Midnight Mass''. Her father was novelist Eric Linklater, and her mother was social activist, Marjorie MacIntyre.<ref>[http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/l/ericlinklater.html Eric Linklater profile], undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography; accessed 13 May 2014.</ref> Her brothers Magnus and Andro Linklater are writers.<ref name="mills"/>
On 5 June 2020, Linklater died of a heart attack at the age of 84.<ref name="genzlinger"/>
==Bibliography== * {{cite book|last=Linklater|first=Kristin|title=Freeing the Natural Voice| publisher=Drama Publishers|date=June 1976|isbn=0-89676-071-5}} * {{cite book|last=Linklater|first=Kristin|title=Revised and Expanded Edition, Freeing the Natural Voice|publisher=Drama Publishers, an imprint of Quite Specific Media Group, Ltd|date=November 2006|isbn=978-0-89676-250-3}} * {{cite book|last=Linklater|first=Kristin|title=Freeing Shakespeare's Voice: The Actor's Guide to Talking the Text|date=April 1992|publisher=Theatre Communications Group|isbn=1-55936-031-3|url=https://archive.org/details/freeingshakespea00link}} * {{cite book|last=Linklater|first=Kristin|title=Revised and Expanded Edition, Meisterwerk Stimme, Entfaltung und Pflege eines natürlichen Instruments |date=2019|publisher=Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, München|isbn=978-3-497-02902-0 |edition=5th}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== *{{IBDB name|83320}} * [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/media/00/kLinklater/ "Kristin Linklater: Acting, A Verbal Art"], ''Columbia News Video Brief'', 7 February 2000. URL accessed 4 January 2006
==External links== * [http://www.kristinlinklater.com/ Kristin Linklater.com] – official website * [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Magazine/Fall2003/vox.html "Erotikes"], ''Columbia Magazine'', Fall 2003 * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060105230346/http://www.tcg.org/am_theatre/at_articles/AT_Volume_18/Jan01/jan01_bogart_linklater.html "Balancing Acts: Anne Bogart and Kristin Linklater Debate the Current Trends in American Actor-Training"]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Linklater, Kristin}} Category:Alumni of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Category:Columbia University faculty Category:People educated at St Leonards School Category:Scottish people of Swedish descent Category:Scottish expatriate actresses in the United States Category:Scottish stage actresses Category:Scottish theatre directors Category:Scottish voice actresses Category:British voice coaches Category:Place of birth missing Category:1936 births Category:2020 deaths Category:British women theatre directors Category:Scottish women theatre directors Kristin