Nancy Houfek

Nancy Houfek (Head of Voice & Speech at the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University) teaches voice, speech, dialects, and text to the MFA acting candidates, coaches the actors of the professional theater company, and administers the MFA in voice training pedagogy. Nancy has served as a consultant to actors, television journalists, talk show personalities, lawyers, politicians, teachers, and other professional speakers throughout the United States since 1978. At Harvard, she has presented workshops for Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Medical School, School of Public Health, Radcliffe Fellows, and the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, as well as for numerous clients in the private sector. The Act of Teaching, a film of her work with Harvard faculty, was produced by the Bok Center for national distribution to faculty development centers.
Nancy received her BA from Stanford University and her MFA from the American Conservatory Theatre, where she remained as an actor, director, and coach for nearly a decade. She has held faculty or guest positions at the University of Washington, the Drama Studio of London, S.M.U., and the University of Minnesota. She has coached productions directed by Bill Ball, Allen Fletcher, Ed Hastings, Benny Sato Ambush, Bill T. Jones, Andrei Serban, Robert Woodruff, David Mamet, Scott Zigler, and Marcus Stern—among others—at A.C.T, the Guthrie Theatre, and the A.R.T. Actors she has taught or coached include Annette Bening, Carolyn McCormick, Will Patton, Debra Winger, Benjamin Bratt, Arliss Howard, Felicity Huffman, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Chris Cooper.
Nancy has appeared with regional theaters throughout the country including A.C.T., the Denver Center Theatre Company, the California Shakespeare Festival, the Alaska Repertory Theatre, San Jose Repertory, and Seattle's Empty Space. She received a Los Angeles DramaLogue Award for her portrayal of Josie Hogan in the Magic Theatre's production of A Moon for the Misbegotten, as well as Bay Area Theatre Critics' Circle Awards for her work in To Gillian on her 37th Birthday and Quilters. In 1995, she produced and performed her one-person show, Letters from Manila, at the Southern Theatre in Minneapolis and in 1996/97 joined the national tour of Shapiro & Smith Dance, which culminated in performances at the Joyce Theatre in New York City. She has directed such plays as Coriolanus, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard III, Twelfth Night, Les Belles Soeurs, and Bus Stop.
Nancy is a Master Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework.