Dudley Knight

Knight was born and raised in Rochester, Minnesota. He became interested in Shakespeare at age 9, during a class outing to see Laurence Olivier's film version of The Cronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (1944). He graduated from the Yale School of Drama. He was a co-founder of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. He retired from the University of California, Irvine, where he taught for twenty years. Knight coached voice, text, and dialects at many theatres, including the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, and American Conservatory Theater.[2] From the mid to late 1970s, Knight hosted a weekly radio series, "The Graveyard Shift", on KPFK, Los Angeles, where he read famous horror stories.[3][4]

He was a Master teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, which is based on the teachings of Catherine Fitzmaurice.[5] He conducted workshops where he taught Knight-Thompson Speechwork, a skills-based approach to speech and accent training for actors that places emphasis on developing the speaker's detailed awareness of and engagement with the skills that make up language.[6] His 2012 book, Speaking With Skill, is considered a major work in its field.

He was married to noted American painter and sculptor Marta Whistler. Dudley Knight died of a heart attack at his home in Newport Beach, California.