Actors trained during pandemic lack vocal power and range, says RSC leader

Daniel Evans, the RSC’s co-artistic director, says he has been struck by the number of actors now in their mid-20s who are struggling to project their voices. Photograph: Johan Persson

Young actors who trained at drama school during the pandemic are struggling to project their voices and lack range because they were denied the crucial “experience of full vocal and physical presence” within a theatre, the co-artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has said.

Daniel Evans said performing within the confines of bedrooms or kitchens, and reciting lines to cameras on laptops, had stunted the development of some actors’ vocal musculature.