San Francisco Voice Center

I am an experienced singer and actor (20+ years onstage). I have been struggling with vocal issues from an unhappy mix of regular rehearsals, live theatrical improv performances, and voice-​strangling asthma meds. And since my stage work involves often intimate, delicate moments of human relating, I needed help remembering to project. After an hour of working with Lisa Wentz, I had a set of tools which have been working beautifully for me since. Lisa’s focus on Alexander Technique modalities means that she considered every part of me, every bit of information I provided to determine my needs. In my case, I needed to learn how I was preventing my breath to be fully supported, and how to speak more clearly as I project. Lisa also gently helped me deal with some of my underlying emotional issues, which tend to keep me quiet. She validated my experience, and easily guided me to my desired results.
What I found most refreshing about working with Lisa was not only her profound expertise, but also her apparent joy in her work. She has an easy, straight-​ahead style, which this former New Yorker finds refreshing.

What a wonderful and professional instructor! We were very grateful for Lisa’s interest in serving as a guest lecturer for our Huckleberry Wellness Academy program participants. The goal of the 2 hour workshop was to help our shy and timid 10^th grade high school students further develop their public speaking skills. Despite the 2 hour time constraint, Lisa displayed extreme focus as she facilitated various communication exercises that emphasized strengthening the students’ breathing, posture, delivery, and eye contact. She was personable and engaging and I would love the opportunity to work with Lisa again!

I’ve been working with Lisa for the past year on reducing my Romanian accent and she has been incredibly helpful! I’ve listened to before and after recordings and it’s shocking how much progress I’ve been able to make!
Lisa is easy to work with and knows exactly what to focus on. We started with vowels, then moved on to specific consonants (like getting rid of the rolling «r» used in Romanian) and then intonation. Her approach was very methodical and very results oriented, which I enjoyed. Besides accent reduction, I’ve worked with Lisa on giving presentations and her advice in that area was also very useful.

I am a french actor and I have been struggling for a while trying to reduce my french accent to take my career to the next level. I’ve researched a lot of accent reduction coach in the Bay Area and came to realized that it was quite difficult to find one who actually knows what they are talking about. Since I started my accent training with Lisa I can honestly say that my improvement has been pretty noticeable. I feel way more confident about it and I now know that it is possible for me to acquire a perfect american accent. Lisa is extremely knowledgeable and really deals with each sound and area of speech at a time which I found very effective. Because of her lessons my work as an actor has improved. I recently auditioned for an american part with and I got a call back, the director never noticed my french accent and didn’t ask me where I was from. I couldn’t be more happy about Lisa’s services i highly recommend her to anyone serious about acquiring a solid american accent.

I had a wonderful time working with Lisa on my public speaking skills. She is funny, engaging, and amazingly insightful. I am constantly called upon to give presentations and to educate. Occasionally I would feel knocked off guard, or less confident depending on the circumstances. I was hoping to find someone who could help me achieve a more authoritative presence and speaking style. In just 4 sessions I got that and much more. We worked on posture, slowing down my delivery and making eye contact. The work has definitely increased my confidence. I can see that people are listening to me more and the feedback I’ve gotten from my colleagues has been extremely positive. Thank you!

I have been living in the United Sates for 10 years now. I was born and raised in Mexico City and felt the need to improve my accent and speech.
During my first session with Lisa, she was able to identify the issues in my speech immediately. I was blown away. At each session, she focused on a different area needing improvement. She is a true professional and expert.
She helped me improve my confidence level when communicating not only to close friends and family, but also to professionals at all levels in my industry. My articulation and speech have greatly improved because of the work we did together.
I highly recommend Lisa Wentz to any professional who is looking to improve their communication through speech. Every minute of every session is absolutely worth it!

I went to Lisa as I wanted to improve my speech. She is very knowledgable and very friendly, and has the ability to make you feel extremely comfortable. Within ten minutes, she was able to address my weakness and gave me specific instructions and exercises to improve my vocal clarity. She is extremely professional and is very flexible when it comes to scheduling.
I would highly recommend her for anyone looking to improve their speaking skills and improving presentation and negotiating skills.

I went to Lisa to explore how to improve public speaking and speak clearly. Lisa is very knowledgeable and provided excellent, insightful feedback. The lessons provided me with some understanding of my habit, and she was able to give me guidance of what I could do to improve.
The lessons were fun and creative.
Her office is located at the Powell BART stop which was very easy to get to.

I’ve been living in the U.S. for 13 years. Although I quickly assimilated well to the culture, I never quite lost my accent. So I decided to seek out an accent reduction coach. I met with Lisa and felt an immediate rapport. Her evaluation of my accent was much more thorough than I expected. We set a goal for 12 sessions. After the 4^th session I noticed people had stopped asking me where I was from. By the 12^th session I was very close to eliminating my accent. I learned enough in the sessions to continue the work on my own, which I am still doing.
Lisa was a delight to work with. She is insightful, intelligent, and very knowledgeable about speech production. She provided excellent feedback and encouragement.
Her office is located at the Powell BART stop which was very easy to get to.
I had great experience that exceeded my expectations! I highly recommend!

I went to Lisa to improve my professional speaking and presentation skills but walked away with lots more than that I had originally anticipated. Lisa employed a unique approach of breathing techniques, posture control and voice training to help me deliver more engaging pitches.
It was tons of work, but the effort paid off handsomely. Now I feel at ease making both spontaneous and rehearsed presentations to various audience.
I’d highly recommend her services to anybody who seeks to enhance his/​her public speaking skills.

Lisa was able to point out components of my speech that were weak. She offered alternatives to them that are now strengths. She also taught me breathing techniques that changed my speech. She brought out my true voice. Now I can convey how I actually feel and enroll others in the importance of what I’m saying. It’s made a HUGE difference. I wish I had done this years ago. As the director of marketing for an interior decorator and an entrepreneur of a business, this has changed the caliber of my work. Thanks Lisa!

I’ve had several occasions to work with Lisa in a variety of contexts. Her Public Speaking Workshops have helped me gain a tremendous amount of confidence and have made a *crucial* difference in my business meetings with clients. Lisa is funny, intelligent, and extremely good at what she does, I can highly recommend the SF Voice Center for anyone looking to improve their confidence, public speaking skills, and verbal and non-​verbal communication.
Excellent — highly recommended.

I’ve been a working actor for about a decade and have taken many classes on speech, diction, accents, dialects etc. Although English is my mother tongue, I’m not from the US. I’ve been cast as many nationalities but rarely as an American. Certainly not an American who speaks often! And although I’d worked on a General American dialect, I was far from convincing. I could fool some of the people some of the time but I wasn’t fooling the folks who cast projects!
Whereas other teachers had focused on the sounds I was making and pointed out to me the differences between my native sound and General American, (using the IPA — the International Phonetic Alphabet), Lisa was more interested in my speech mechanics. She told me not to focus on saying the word in a certain way but to put my attention on the shape of my jaw and where my sounds were resonating.
Understanding the placement of my normal speech versus the placement of General American speech, I was able to make huge strides in a short time. My foundation was already strong but Lisa’s advice took me to the next level.
I’ve since booked a number of jobs as an American — and a couple of them had many lines of dialogue. Now, when called in to audition for American roles I’m no longer asked by the director where I’m originally from. Although I may not yet fool accent/​dialect coaches with my General American dialect, I fool most of the people most of time. Bob Dylan would be proud of me :-)

My experience was positive, but not sufficient.
The good:
— Lisa has a good ear and can hear very fine tones
— She can imitate sounds very good if needed to show how you are pronouncing a sound
— She has a strong tongue and can pronounce sounds extremely clear (too bad I was not able to get that too)
— She is also forthcoming in letting you see how exactly her tongue is moving and where it is positioned for the different sounds
— She can demonstrate the way one should articulate with tongue and lips very good
— She has good knowledge of the science behind articulation and speech and can explain in theory how one should do it
Now the bad:
— Even though, I learned the theory good, I was not quite able to do it myself.
— I had the feeling that our sessions are not well-​planned and structured (even though I asked at the beginning of each session what is the plan for the session, it did not appear that there is really one)
— Same thing was with homework — I wished the homework would be more structured and detailed and well-​planned by component and by time for each component
— there was a booklet where we were supposed to fill different things for each session but only filled the first page after the first session and did not really followed that structure (which I think was a good idea conceptually)
— Lots of time I felt that there is a certain sense of lack of professionalism in the teaching and in the studio in general — for example she wanted to give me several time various texts to work with and they were not there; we needed to check things on internet and there was no internet in the studio; the mirror in front of which we practiced was dirty sometimes; sometime I felt a bit of making fun of me; also the studio is facing the loud side of Powel street and you can hear sometime various characters yelling down on the street or other loud noises (although that is not really bad); she does not have a book to work with or CDs and it took us until the middle of my teaching until she was finally able to recommend one book from another author (apparently the book which I had bought which was recommended to me by another professional was not the righ one). This was surprising to me because if you are a professional in this area and do this for living, you should have already at least one book which you can readily recommend to your students.
— Apparently she explained that some «click» will happen and I will start speaking all of a sudden a lot more like the Americans, but this click did not really come
— All in all, I did learn couple of things with regard to the pronunciation of some vowels and consonants and several of those did get better, but I have the feeling that my accent did not change really that much even though I practiced diligently and invested a lot of time.
At the end of the day, even if you know how you should do things it is pretty hard to make it in reality and this is of course my responsibility. (for example one of the problems I had was that I need to relax the back of my tongue — pretty hard to do if you are used to do it so naturally and subconsciously).
In summary, I would say — do not expect wonders out of 10 sessions.