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About Cynthia

Cynthia Santos-DeCure is an actress, voice, speech and dialects coach; certified in both Knight-Thompson Speechwork® and as Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®.

 

She is an Associate Professor of Acting at the Yale School of Drama where she teaches accents, dialects and voice. She has taught at California State University Stanislaus, California Institute of the Arts, UC Santa Barbara, University of Southern California, NY Film Academy and California State University, Los Angeles.

She is a Yale Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project (2021-22). Member of the National Theatre Conference.

A bilingual native of Puerto Rico, Cynthia is a board member and the director Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for the Voice and Speech Trainers Association. 

A performer advocate, with over 30 years of experience, Cynthia served on the National Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild (1996-2001) where she also served as the Latino Committee and National Chair of the Women’s Committee. Currently, she serves on the Steering Committee of the Latinx Theater Commons (Howlround). She has presented at national conferences in Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C., London and Montreal on empowering underrepresented voices, speech, and accents of Spanish. Her published research and scholarship examine linguistic identity and representation in performance and voice and speech training for the multicultural actor. Some publications: Writing and Performing Latina Identity (ProQuest), Scenes for Latinx Actors: Voices of the New American Theatre (Smith and Kraus), chapter-La Voz de Shakespeare (in book Shakespeare and Latinidad by Trevor Boffone Carla Della Gatta, Oxford Press). She is co-editor of the forthcoming, Latinx Actor Training (Routledge 2023). 

Cynthia has coached actors for TV, film and theatre. In addition to her academic teaching, she has taught workshops in the U.S. as well as internationally on voice, speech and accents in such places as Shanghai Theatre Academy – Winter Institute – Shanghai, China; Institut de Teatre – Barcelona, Spain and University of Puerto Rico- Drama Dept. She specializes in all accents of Spanish.

Cynthia is also a playwright. Her play Miss Quince premiered at the 2012 John Lion New Plays Festival and received a merit award from KC/ACTF. The play was featured in NoPassport’s 30/30 Festival and received staged readings at Urban Theater Company in Chicago, Dramatic Question Theater in NYC and Cara Mia Theater in Dallas.Her bilingual co-adaptation with Tatiana Pandiani of Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding) was presented by DGSD (Yale Drama) in the fall of 2021. 

She has a B.A. in Theater from the University of Southern California's School of Dramatic Arts and an MFA in acting from California State University, Los Angeles' Theatre, Film and Television program.

She is the daughter of arranger-composer 'el maestro' Ray Santos.

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