Rebecca Simon

Rebecca is currently an Assistant Professor of Theatre in the School of Theatre and Dance at East Carolina University, where she is the resident specialist in Voice, Text, and Dialects. In addition to her coaching work on the ECU productions, she teaches acting in the BFA programs in Acting and Musical Theatre. Among her many credits, Rebecca was the vocal coach for the McCarter Theatre Company production of The White Snake, directed by Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman. Also, for the McCarter, she assisted expert dialect teacher Gillian Lane-Plescia on A Christmas Carol. For Bristol Riverside Theatre, she coached dialects for their productions of Witness for the Prosecution and Julia Cho’s The Language Archive. For The Language Archive, she had the unique challenge of creating a dialect for an original language created by the playwright. For the George Street Playhouse, she coached American Hero, Trying and Little Girl Blue: The Nina Simone Musical, and the pre-Broadway tryout of the musical A Walk on the Moon by Pamela Gray and Paul Scott Goodman. Rebecca is a Resident Artist and Voice and text Coach for the Forestburgh Playhouse, the oldest continuously operating summer stock in New York State. Her work there includes Mathilda, Clue!, Oliver, and many others.

As a proud member of Actors Equity, acting credits include the Broadway National Tours of Fiddler on the Roof with Theodore Bikel and The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber starring Michael Bolton. She toured with The Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas Eve and Other Stories as a vocalist. New York credits include the musical Masada at the York Theatre, Boulevard X at Raw Space, the premiere of Piper’s Song at the Gene Frankel Theatre, and Alcestis and Salome, both for the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.

 

For Forestburgh Playhouse, she appeared as Truvy in Steel Magnolias, Morticia in The Addams Family, Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein, Mitzi in A Murder is Announced, and Jacqueline in La Cage Aux Folles. Regional credits include Charity in a 7-actor reimagining of Sweet Charity for Aurora Theatre in Atlanta, Factory Girl in Les Miserables at Miami's Actors Playhouse, Eva Peron in Evita, Feste in Twelfth Night, Marta in Company, and Belinda in Noises Off for the Florida Atlantic Festival Repertory. For ECU Summer Theatre, she performed in An Evening of Jacques Brel. Rebecca has extensive experience in commercial and industrial work. She appeared on Sex & the City and worked for the 48 Hour Film Project in New York. 

Professional and Educational directing credits include Shout! The Mod Musical at The Forestburgh Playhouse and Arcadia University, Cuentos Del Arbol for Passage Theatre Company with students from Trenton's El Centro, and the cabaret The Human Heart: A Cabaret for Love & Unity and Heathers: The Musical for Rider University. For the production of Heathers at Rider, Rebecca worked with her dear friend composer Laurence O'Keefe to debut new material that was added to the London production. For the Forestburgh Playhouse, she directed Shout! The Mod Musical and shows for their cabaret series.

As a much sought-after clinician and consultant, Rebecca's work is seen on the stages of many schools, including Princeton Day School. She has presented numerous workshops for NJ Thespians and the Southeastern Theatre Conference, to name a few. Rebecca was a respondent for the Princeton Chapter of the English Speaking Union's Shakespeare Competition and Shakespearience for Rider University's School of Education. Rebecca was a Resident Teaching Artist for the McCarter Theatre Company, where she directed Shakespeare productions with the fifth graders of several Princeton, NJ area elementary schools. Rebecca has served on the faculty of the Tennessee Governor's School of the Arts and for the Springer Theatre Academy and THE EDGE, the summer Musical Theatre Program at ECU. Recently, Rebecca taught Voice for the Actor and Musical Theatre for the International Young Theatre Festival (in conjunction with the Josip Juraj Strossmeyer University of Osijek) in Bale, Croatia, working with students and teachers from across Europe. Rebecca maintains a vibrant private studio and is grateful to serve clients in diverse industries from across the globe. Rebecca coaches actors working onstage and on-camera from New York to Los Angeles to Pakistan to London to Greece to Bangkok and many places in between, including work here in Greenville with television news professionals and local production companies.

She holds an M.F.A in Acting from Florida Atlantic University where she received the Joshua Logan Fellowship. While a student in the Graduate Acting Program, she received the Best Supporting Actress Award from the Broward Palm Beach New Times. She graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from the University at Buffalo and holds a certification in Colaianni Speech and Phonetic Pillows Technique. But her favorite roles are wife and partner-in-art-and-life to actor/director Trent Blanton and Mommy to Tony, the most perfect Labrador Retriever in the world.