Bryn Austin

As actors, I believe we must first know our own idiolect, speak our own truth, and honor our own story. Only then are we ready to embody the characters entrusted to our care, speak their words with our voice, and tell their stories faithfully.  

Bryn Austin joined the Conservatory in 2009 and teaches voice and speech in the Theater Division, specializing in phonetics and accent and dialect acquisition. Austin was honored as Outstanding Theater Faculty of the Year by Conservatory theater students in 2018 and 2016.

Austin is active as a professional dialect coach in northern New England. Highlights of her work in the Boston area include Cardboard Piano (New Repertory Theatre Company, 2019), Dancing at Lughnasa (Gloucester Stage Company, 2018), Hold These Truths, Peter and the Star Catcher, and Intimate Apparel (Lyric Stage Company of Boston 2017, 2016, 2015), and My Wonderful Day (Zeitgeist Stage Company, 2011). Austin is an associate editor-at-large of the International Dialects of English Archive, and a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association.

Before coming to New England, Austin served as chair of the department of theatre arts at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas,  a teaching artist in residence at the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, and an acting teacher at the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park University. Other highlights of Austin’s work in educational theater include four years as producing artistic director of the touring company Shakespeare in the Schools, and three years as a core member of Stages in History, the resident acting company of the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. She has presented work and participated in panels at numerous national, international, and regional conferences and residencies, and was selected to participate in the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Leadership Institute.

Austin earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting from the University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in theater studies from Bryn Mawr College. She is currently working toward certification in Knight-Thompson Speechwork.

Professional Awards and Recognitions

• Best of Berklee Teaching Award (Boston Conservatory at Berklee Theater Division, 2018)
• Outstanding Faculty of the Year (Boston Conservatory Theater Division, 2016)
• Excellence in Direction (Alamo Theater Arts Council Globe Awards, 2005, 2006)
• Excellence in Acting (Alamo Theater Arts Council Globe Awards, 2005)

Recent Engagements

• Cardboard Piano (New Repertory Theatre Company, 2019)—Dialect Coach
• The Little Foxes (Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 2019)—Dialect Coach
• Dancing at Lughnasa (Gloucester Stage Company, 2018)—Dialect Coach, Actor/Agnes
• Virginia Woolf's Orlando (Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 2018)—Dialect Coach
• Hold These Truths (Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 2017)—Dialect Coach