Rachel Kenney

Irish, Irish (Dublin), Irish (Galway), Irish (Belfast/Northern), British, British (RP), British (Cockney), English, English (RP), English (Cockney), Scottish, French, Russian, Indian, German, New Zealand, Minnesota, Chicago, Wisconsin, Midwest, Midwestern, American, General American, Southern, American Southern, Southern American, Atlanta, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Boston, California, New York, Katharine Hepburn, Old Katharine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Bullwinkle, Gollum, Smeagol, Old Man, Old Woman, Old Person, Baby, Infant, Teenager, Bored Teenager, Valley Girl, Jewish Mother, Nerd, Smoker, Old Timey Announcer, News Reel Announcer, Noir, Femme Fatale, Surfer, Skater, Child, Kid

I have studied both commercial and animation voiceover styles with professional voiceover artist Anna Garduno in NYC. I am also a member of the Story Pirates in NYC, a group that adapts stories written by elementary school students into sketch comedy performances. My work in Story Pirates requires me to create and perform a plethora of strange, zany, silly, distinct, and memorable character voices for a huge array of characters (men, women, children, teenagers, adults, old people, any kind of animal or inanimate object imaginable). Story Pirates does a radio show and puts out a podcast of some of the stories we've adapted, so my Story Pirates voice work is sometimes recorded and broadcast. Before I graduated from Northwestern University, I studied voice/speech and dialect/accents and did extensive vocal performance work under professional voice and dialect coach Linda Gates. I was also a member of Northwestern University Radio drama, where I was a voice actor in weekly comedic and dramatic half-hour narrative scripts broadcast live over Northwestern University's radio station, WNUR. My work in the radio dramas required me to have a large arsenal of distinct and diverse voices (both male and female, young and old), ranging from realistic to cartoonish and zany. I was also a member of a group called Griffin's Tale, the collegiate version of Story Pirates (described above), for which I also developed and performed an arsenal of character voices ideal for cartoon/animation work. In high school, I was a very active competitor in Speech and Debate/Forensics. I was the 2008 National Champion in Prose Interpretation for the National Forensic League for my vocal performance of selections from Katharine Hepburn's autobiography. I also won multiple national, state-wide, and district-wide awards for my work in Duo Interpretation and Humorous Interpretation, which both required me to use a large variety of unique character voices, again ranging from realistic to bizarre and wacky, young and old, male and female, etc. My Speech/Forensics performances were not recorded or broadcast, but all the distinct character voices I developed and used in my performances were very well suited to cartoon voice styles and animation voice work. In New York City, I've taken voiceover classes with industry professional Anna Garduno and I did a voiceover workshop at the Actor's Greenroom with several NYC voiceover agents and casting directors. I graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre (acting). My primary acting teacher (for Modern/Contemporary, Shakespeare, Greeks/Classical, Comedy, etc.) was David Catlin, and I studied acting secondarily with Mary Poole, Gail, Shapiro, and Cindy Gold. At Northwestern I also studied Voice/Speech and dialects/accents with Linda Gates. I also attended BADA (The British American Drama Academy), where I studied Shakespeare with James Bundy, Modern/Contemporary acting with Ian Wooldridge, and Voice/Speech with Andrew Wade & John Tucker. I have a Snowball Blue microphone that I can connect to my laptop and record sound files that I can edit with Audacity or Garage Band. I am a member of Story Pirates, a group that adapts stories written by elementary school students into sketch comedy performances. My work in Story Pirates requires me to create and perform a plethora of strange, zany, silly, distinct, and memorable character voices for a huge array of characters (men, women, children, teenagers, adults, old people, any kind of animal or inanimate object imaginable). Story Pirates does a radio show and puts out a podcast of some of the stories we've adapted, so my Story Pirates voice work is sometimes recorded and broadcast. After performing with the Story Pirates in dozens of elementary schools across the country and at plenty of children's birthday parties, I have a good first-hand sense of what voices resonate well with kids of different ages, ideal for animation projects targeted toward kids ranging from age 3-12. I am very good at accents and dialects. I have a large vocabulary and am comfortable with complex language and large words (such as might be used in certain industrials, training videos, or medical/business expert commercials).