voice
performance
breath
For ten years, I studied with David Craig, whose approach transformed the way I understand singing onstage. I now teach songs as acted stories: we clarify who is speaking, to whom, and why; listen to what the music is doing; and explore the thought that comes before each word and action. The result is a performance in which voice, body, and intention work together—and the song becomes vivid, specific, and genuinely compelling. If you do the work, every time you sing the song it will look like it’s unfolding through you for the very first time. You will be completely focused, unself-conscious, and you will be captivating.
David Craig, author of On Singing Onstage, taught performers to make a song feel inevitable rather than presented. The core principle is that the thought precedes the action: the singer first clarifies the specific, personal impulse behind each phrase, then lets the breath, voice, and body respond to that thought. The result is a performance that stays connected to the lyric’s meaning instead of relying on generalized emotion or technical display. I studied this work with Craig for roughly a decade in the 1980s and ’90s and continue to teach the same sequence—clear intention first, then the physical and vocal choices that follow from it.
My Background
I had the great privilege of working with legendary teaching and author David Craig (1923–1998) over about a ten year period starting in the late 1980’s. David developed a practical method for making songs feel like lived thought rather than performed material. Best known for On Singing Onstage (1978), he also wrote On Performing and A Performer Prepares. Over five decades he worked with performers including Lucille Ball, Cicely Tyson, Barbara Cook, Lawrence Olivier, Cyd Charisse, Barbara Harris, Lee Grant, and many others in musical theatre and film. Harold Prince once said Craig knew “more about singing in the musical theatre than anyone in this country.”
The central principle is that the thought precedes the action. Before a phrase is sung, the performer clarifies the specific impulse—what is wanted, from whom, and why now. That thought occupies the “air” of the song (the rests, pickups, and spaces the composer has already written) and produces the breath, body, and gesture that follow. Lyrics are treated as a monologue; the music is the other script. Subtext exercises, precise focus, and timed physical choices keep the performance continuous and specific instead of generalized or decorative.
Because the sequence is concrete—intention first, then the physical and vocal response—it is especially useful for audition nerves. When the next thought and its timing are already decided, attention stays on the task rather than on self-consciousness. The singer has something reliable to do in the room, which reduces the sense of being judged and keeps the performance aligned with the material.
I have taught this method for decades, both in private coaching and workshops including singers, public speakers, and even comics and other high-pressure performers.
My Teaching Philosophy
I very much follow the principles of everything I learned from David Craig as they are unchanging. They are based on human nature. The way we perceive the smallest shift in where someone is pointing their eyes, the timing and quality of the movement of a hand, the ability to sing the subtext of a song - correctly timed - to the words flowing from the mouth in tempo when our thoughts and feelings don’t naturally unfold in concert with the timing of a song. That’s where the technique comes in. It works every time because it takes you to a natural-looking physical life regardless of the material. In my experience, if you learn this practice and put it into action, you will never forget a lyric (the very least benefit) because your mind will be ahead of your mouth at all times. You won’t have a chance to be nervous because you will be completely focused and absorbed in the life of the “other” script. You will unfold every song as if it was being born in your head and heart in that exact moment every time.
Your Results
“Elizabeth gave me tools that were very challenging at first - but not impossible. She stretched me to a higher level of performance than I could have imagined I was capable of achieving. And now, the technique feels so natural I can’t imagine going back to whatever I was doing before!” Maureen Maura
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