Kathryn Cunningham 

Kathryn Cunningham (“Katie”) is a freelance voice and speech expert and actor with nearly two decades of professional experience working at some of America’s foremost theatrical institutions. Her areas of specialization include speech and dialects, Shakespeare and heightened texts, and vocology. 

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Cunningham has been acting with the Clarence Brown Theatre (CBT) since 2013 and joined the full-time faculty of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) in 2020 as Assistant Professor of Voice and Speech. In 2023, she was appointed to the position of Head of Acting, administering UTK’s renowned graduate acting program and coordinating faculty in the acting area at large. As the company’s resident voice and text expert and a member of the resident acting company, Cunningham plays many roles - onstage and off - in CBT productions. 

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Cunningham’s professional credits as an actor and voice and speech expert include productions at the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Great River Shakespeare Festival, Nashville Repertory Theatre, Asolo Rep, Northern Stage, Arkansas Rep, American Stage, and TheatreSquared, among many more. Her work in New York includes projects with TACT/The Actors’ Company Theatre, The Resident Acting Company, New York International Fringe Festival, and The Tank.  

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Her peer-reviewed research has been published in The Journal of Voice, The Voice and Speech Review, and the International Dialects of English Archive. She has presented at the Pan-American Vocology Association (PAVA) Symposium and Southeastern Theatre Conference. Her writing and expert commentary has been featured in The Conversation, The Huffington Post, and on Australian Public Radio. She received the Voice and Speech Trainers’ Association (VASTA) Dorothy Mennen Research and Development Grant and the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Visiting Faculty Travel Grant. Cunningham is a Certified Teacher of Knight-Thompson Speechwork (2021) and a Pan-American Vocology Association Recognized Vocologist (2023).

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Cunningham holds an MFA in Acting from Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training and a BA, summa cum laude, in Political Science and Dramatic Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2022, she completed an 18-credit graduate certificate in vocology from the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at Lamar University. She is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association since 2010.