Dudley Knight Has Left Us

It is with great sorrow that we record the passing of Dudley Knight, our friend and colleague. He died yesterday, June 27, of a heart attack, in Irvine, California. He would have been 78 years old on July 1. Dudley, in addition to being an associate editor for IDEA, was an American voice/speech/dialect expert and stage actor with more than 40 years of experience as a speech and dialect teacher, and voice director for professional theatre. He conducted workshops and lectures on voice and speech for actors and voice teachers worldwide. He retired from the University of California, Irvine, where he taught for twenty years. Knight coached voice, text, and dialects at many theatres, including the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, and American Conservatory Theatre. He was a Master teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, which is based on the teachings of Catherine Fitzmaurice. He conducted workshops with Phil Thompson, where he taught Knight-Thompson Speechwork, his modified version of the Fitzmaurice technique. As an actor, he played major roles at American Conservatory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Mark Taper Forum, and Utah Shakespearean Festival, among others.
He will be sorely missed. Thanks for your life; rest in peace, Dudley. -Paul