Colleen Bates

Acting captured me in college 30 years ago as I was studying to be a band director. Soon I was treading every stage I could find and used my music degree only in the numerous musical theater presentations in which I was cast. My acting aspirations led me to Birmingham, Alabama, where in an effort to support my habit, I lucked into being a voice over talent. For a while I was one of the "voiceover queens" of that city, doing spots for, among others, Bell South (commerical and customer service recordings), retail stores, banks, many car dealers, just about every kind of spot one could imagine - and I loved it. The voice over connections led to a TV audition, and I landed a job as the co-host of a morning TV show at WBRC-TV, which I held for five years, then transferred to morning radio news at WMJJ-FM, joining in with many characters in the zany morning team's skits. I learned how to be a voiceover talent with true on-the-job training. I was working at Boutwell Recording Studios in Birmingham, Alabama, and although I was an actress, I hadn't quite got the hang of the voice over talent thing. Two of the engineers were morning radio guys who wrote crazy skits with even crazier characters, and to help me learn to be comfortable acting in front of a microphone as well as make up for the lousy $212 a week they paid me, they pulled me in the studio whenever they could. And I learned to be a voice actor while having an indecent amount of fun at the same time. I have a BA in music and a minor in English, and I was a co-producer for the TV morning show, as well as news director for the radio station's morning show. I did quite a bit of feature production and promo writing when I was at WBRC-TV, as well as performed in as many plays and musicals as my schedule would allow. I studied acting in New York City, and for the past 15 years I have been working as an on-camera and voice actor in Atlanta, Georgia, including several years doing promos for TCM and TBS. Presently I do many greetings and other voice over services for Message Technologies. I have an excellent grasp of the English languange, being an inveterate reader, which I believe, along with my acting skills, give me the ability to interpret copy, edit it if need be, and generally communicate a warm, personal, real presence.