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How would you like to understand each individual? Know what they mean and why are they doing what they are doing? That’s exactly what the star of this one-woman show has achieved through her journey. “
Freedom of Speech” is a ninety-minute play, lecture, and reenactment of people of United States of America.
Eliza Jane Schneider, who has fallen in love with dialects, has traveled the US in a decommissioned ambulance recording every one she could stick her voice recorder to. From a nun who has taken vows not to talk to any one, to gangster thugs, prostitutes, heroin addicts and many more. What has started out as a database of dialects, became the confessions of the people of the US.
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Eliza Schneider as one of her 34 characters in her play, Freedom of Speech
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In “
Freedom of Speech”,
Eliza takes us through her journey and invites the people she has come across to posses her body in order to share their story. Her acting ability along with her vocal mastery of dialects, completely gives room for the audience to believe the chilling transformations in front of them. She breaks character in order to talk to the audience as herself, to tell a joke or explain the irony of a particular character.
Eliza not only breaks the fourth wall but steps through it, literally. Experience the many fireworks of conflicts and understanding of two opposite views mixing with your own perception at the same time. To the people who she has interviewed she has become a mobile confession stand. It is like watching NBC’s “60 minutes” unfold in front of you. Who would have known that her idea of cross-country adventure in an ambulance van to record regional dialects for her senior thesis would turn into the living-breathing confessionals of American people? She has collected over a 1000 recordings traveling across the world and the play “
Freedom of Speech” is based on the 34 most memorable people that she has come across with doing so. The play premiered at the
New York International Fringe Festival in 2003 and won the
Best Solo Show Award and in 2005 it was performed at
New York’s famed Public Theater.
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Eliza Schneider as one of her 34 characters in her play, Freedom of Speech
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Eliza Jane Schneider is simply amazing, on stage and off. She is an alumni of UCLA’s World Arts and Cultures Department, speaks French and Russian and is proficient in 11 different musical instruments. Not to mention her own personal instrument, her voice. You’ll be blown away when she suddenly breaks into song. One might think as the song being silly, or an inappropriate timing or what ever it is, she will win them over by the time the last note is sang.
Eliza is clearly a gifted voice over artist; you have heard her as all female characters in
Comedy Central’s South Park, MTV’s 3-South, NBC’s Spy TV, Paramount’s What Women Want, and
King of the Hill, as well as various voices in
Pixar’s feature, Finding Nemo.
Her addiction and a love affair with dialects could be tied to her family and her childhood. She was born into a family of a Jewish father, who’s a math and drama teacher; and a Native American mother who’s a law attorney. Growing up at a Chippewa Reservation along with her two brothers. She was surrounded by differences of cultures yet lived by the examples of her parents who had found the understanding among them.
Perhaps
Eliza is right, “if you’re not careful, understanding turns into love”
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Eliza Schneider as one of her 34 characters in her play, Freedom of Speech
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"Freedom of Speech." The prize-winning show. Written and performed by Eliza Jane Schneider. Directed by Sal Romeo. Produced by Larry Minion.
West Coast Premiere engagement: Sidewalk Studio Theater, 4150 Riverside Drive, Burbank, CA 91505. August 2- September 7, 2008. Sat. & Sun. at 8 p.m.
Admission is $15, for reservations please call (818) 754-4264.
For
more info please visit their website: www.elizajane.com/freedom.html
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