The Talk Shop, LLC was founded Amanda Quaid, a New York-based speech, voice and breath coach. Here, performers and non-performers alike can learn skills to expand their capacity for expression.

Amanda’s clients include award-winning stage and film actors, supermodels, comedians, pop and opera singers, media personalities, corporate executives, and children. She began teaching speech at age 19, commuting from Vassar College on weekends to work with immigrants on accent reduction. Since then, she’s run a thriving private practice in New York City for over 15 years, working privately with actors and as a production dialect coach for plays, TV and film.

A certified Miller Voice Method instructor, she also works with adults and teens on vocal power and public speaking and has a substantial client base of non-performers, everyone from trial lawyers to teens preparing to speak at their Bar Mitzvahs.

As an actor, Amanda has worked on and off-Broadway and regionally, in addition to her work in television and film. Her holistic approach to the particular acting challenges that arise when working in an accent is an area of specialty in her teaching. To see her own accent work, click here.

Amanda in on the faculty of The New School, Long Island University, Freeman Studio, and HB Studio. She’s been featured as an accent expert on WNYC, and her book, American Accent Drills for British and Australian Speakers, was published by Routledge in 2020. She is a past recipient of a SPARC grant from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, to design and lead Shakespeare training programs at NYC Senior Centers. She also volunteers with environmental causes to train activists in public speaking, and gives talks to high school students on the topic of accent diversity.