When a review of one of Matt Harding’s plays appears, it’s better for him if he’s not mentioned at all.
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Recently Harding has been working in the world of prewar England, helping the cast of the Court’s upcoming production of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever speak “Oxford speech” or “received pronunciation.” “R.P.,” Harding says, “is a manufactured class dialect” from the counties surrounding London.
Harding is originally from Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he says he heard a lot of “hick and hillbilly.” He was a born mimic. When he was young he prided himself on his imitations of the voices he heard in television commercials. As a theater student at Wright State University in Dayton he became known as the “accent guy,” and in his third year a professor encouraged him to pursue voice work. After graduating in 1998, Harding took courses at the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Working toward an advanced certificate in voice studies, Harding studied with David Carey, a former Royal Shakespeare Company voice coach.
In the meantime, Harding is happy enough with all the tongues he hears on the streets of Chicago. “If you listen it’s a wonderful pastiche of language,” he says.
