From ‘Satyadev Dubey. A Fifty-year Journey Through Theatre’ Edited by Shanta Gokhale

Read your lines aloud. Listen to your own voice carefully. This increases your concentration and gives your personality balance and grace.

….I stress the importance of practice, practice, practice. When practicing your dialogue, you must say the first seven or eight lines absolutely flat 100-200 times.

Repetition takes us to a heightened condition. It is like a tanpura. When it is well tuned, it starts singing the moment your fingers touch it. The actor should be as finely tuned at all times as a tanpura. Speaking the same lines over and over sharpens your sensitivity. The actor begins to sense all the associations of words and begins to fall in love with them. Exercises can be done alone without anybody’s help. It is through practice that the actor finds his/her own sensibility. The actor who gains this experience is always able to be fresh. It is therefore important to love words and language.

…So it is useful to read and listen to yourself. We will discover our voice then and the search for its true key will become easier. Listening constantly sensitizes the ear, which in turn helps the imagination.

There is only one way to improve your voice-to keep speaking. Make sure that the ends of lines remain strong.

…Speak while inhaling and exhaling breath

Improves the quality and projection of the voice

…Laugh lower and lower starting from a base voice

Clears the voice and increases length of breath

…Speak with a pencil in the mouth or marbles in the cheeks

Makes communication clearer

…Make the sound hunh hunh hunh in a base voice, increasing the volume gradually

This creates the effect of sobbing and clears the throat