Rebecca Simon
Rebecca Simon
Assistant Professor of Theatre
simonr22@ecu.edu
252-328-2110
212 Messick Theatre Arts Center
Mail Stop 553
East Carolina University
Rebecca Simon (she/her/hers) has taught in both the acting and musical theatre programs at Rider University where she was the resident specialist in Voice, Text, and Dialects. Among her many credits, Rebecca had the honor of serving as the vocal coach for the McCarter Theatre Company’s production of The White Snake directed by Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman. Also, for the McCarter, she assisted renowned dialect consultant Gillian Lane-Plescia on her work for the new production of A Christmas Carol directed by Washington D.C.’s Theatre J Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr. 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 and director Adam Immerwahr had the unique challenge of creating a dialect for an original language created by the Playwright. For the George Street Playhouse, Rebecca has coached their productions of American Hero, Trying and Little Girl Blue: The Nina Simone Musical. Prior to just moving to Greenville for her new position at ECU, she was in NYC dialect coaching the new Broadway bound musical A Walk on The Moon.
Rebecca is 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 also 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. Rebecca has done numerous shows at the Forestburgh Playhouse, her summer Artistic home, and the oldest continuous operating Summer Theatre in New York State. Other regional credits include Sweet Charity for Aurora Theatre in Atlanta, Les Misérables at Miami’s Actors Playhouse and Evita, Twelfth Night, Company and Noises Off for the Florida Atlantic Festival Repertory.
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 Tolerance and Heathers: The Musical for Rider. For the production of Heathers at Rider, Rebecca worked with her dear friend and composer Laurence O’Keefe to debut new material that was added to the London production. For the Forestburgh Playhouse, she has also directed for their cabaret series.
As a much sought-after clinician and consultant, Rebecca’s work has been seen on the stages of many NJ area schools. She also serves as resident dialect coach at the Forestburgh Playhouse. She has presented countless workshops for the NJ Thespians and the Southeastern Theatre Conference to name a few. Each year, Rebecca serves as a respondent for the Princeton Chapter of the English Speaking Union’s Shakespeare Competition and Shakesperience for Rider University’s School of Education. Rebecca has been a resident teaching artist for the McCarter Theatre Company where she directed Shakespeare productions with the fifth graders of several Princeton area elementary schools. She has served on the faculty in Musical Theatre for the Tennessee Governor’s School of the Arts and as guest faculty for the Springer Theatre Academy.
She holds an M.F.A in Acting from Florida Atlantic University where she received the Joshua Logan Assistantship. 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.