Biography
Kathleen Dunn-Muzingo is a certified Arthur Lessac Voice and Body Trainer with an additional Certification in Phonetics-A Physical Approach into Accent-Dialect Acquisition under Louis Colaianni. She combines her teaching, performance work, and professional coaching into an integrated process for the acting artist of stage, film and new media.
She served as core faculty for the Lessac Institute for 15 years teaching alongside her mentor, Arthur Lessac. She has been a guest speaker and lecturer for Lessac Conferences across the United States. Her most recent workshops include Kent State University: Moving and Sensing Phonetics, and Consonant Series: Play with Purpose for the Lessac Online Teacher Training Program.
As an actress, Kathleen co-founded the Open Fist Theatre Company in Los Angeles, receiving Dramalogue nominations for her leading roles in The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, Blood Moon and Dusa, Fish, Stas & Vi. She has performed leading roles with The Evidence Room, Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare, Workshop 360 and at the Malibu Stages as Veronica in God of Carnage starring A. Martinez and Pattie in Kimberly Akimbo starring Katharine Ross. Most recent stage credit is her role of Reagan in the Southern California’s Shakespeare’s Festival filming of King Lear.
Kathleen works with major TV and film studios as a voice and dialect coach in all areas of the performance process: from role preparation to onset coaching into post-production. She was the key dialect coach for blockbusters: Marvel’s Avengers, Warner’s Pacific Rim, MGM’s remake of Red Dawn, and Sony Pic’s Green Hornet. She has coached entire TV seasons: How to Get Away with Murder Season 1 and 2, Season 2 of The Shooter and Season 1 of Leverage, including final episodes of Mad Men and Get Shorty. In the indie film world, she was dialect coach for The Guest (2014) starring Dan Stevens.
Kathleen has worked extensively with international stars, including Emmy award winner Hiroyuki Sanada in The Last Ship Season 3, LIFE, and Bullet Train, Ken Watanabe in Shanghai, Jay Chou in The Green Hornet and BoA in Make Your Move.
At USC, she serves as core faculty in the BA and BFA performance programs. Past directing projects for USC include Love’s Labor’s Lost, Queen Margaret and Richard III.