Leigh Dillon
Associate Professor Emerita of Theatre Arts (Acting)
Leigh Dillon is an award-winning voice, speech, accent reduction specialist, and dialect coach, based in New York City, who has trained actors and executives for more than 30 years. She has worked with a host of well-known performers, including Julianne Moore, Archie Panjabi, Julia Ormond, Amanda Peet, Matthew Lillard, Calista Flockhart, and Freddie Prinze Jr.
Dillon received her BFA in acting in 1979 from Purchase College and taught in the acting program from 2002 to 2012, before retiring to focus on her professional work.
Professional Organizations
SAG-AFTRA, AEA, VASTA, AFT, UUP
Selected Theatre:
- Floyd Collins (Tina Landau & Adam Guettel) NY Premiere @ Playwrights Horizons; winner of Lucille Lortel & Obie Awards for Outstanding Musical – Dialect Coach
- Violet (dir: Susan Schulman) NY Premiere @ Playwrights Horizons; winner of Lucille Lortel and Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Musical – Dialect Coach
- Floyd Collins (dir: Tina Landau /American Music Theatre Festival) – Dialect Coach
- States of Independence (dir: Tina Landau /American Music Theatre Festival) – Dialect Coach
- SEVEN (dir: Julie Taymor @ Women In The World Summit) – Dialect Coach to Archie Panjabi with Meryl Streep, Marcia Gay Harden & Shohreh Aghdashloo
- Chicago on Broadway – Dialect Coach to Marco Zunino
- Awake and Sing! (Jewish Rep) – Dialect Coach to Amanda Peet
- Bovver Boys (Primary Stages) – Dialect for Calista Flockhart
- My Children! My Africa! (Portland Stage) – Dialect Coach to Marin Hinkle & Cast
- Absurd Person Singular (dir: John P. Holms/Capital Rep) – Dialect Coach
- Twelfth Night (dir. Edward Berkeley) – Dialect Coach, OP Shakespeare
- Richard III – Dialect Coach to Ayelet Zurer as Lady Anne
- The Comedy of Errors (dir Jon Jory, Actors Theatre Louisville) – Text Coach
- The New Rude Mechanicals (Artistic Dir: Bob Hall & John Pynchon Holms) – Voice & Dialect Coach