Deborah Eubanks is a Voice and Speech instructor at the Academy. She teaches both graduate and undergraduate classes in voice and speech, and is the ARC tutor for the acting department.

Q: How did you get to where you are today? What is your backstory?

DE: Brutal hard work and the constant belief in the power on language embodied in humanity, and being locked in and in love with what I do.

I was accepted into university when I was 29-year-old single parent.

I remember cycling down the avenues by the university and feeling my body tingling. I couldn’t believe that I was a Drama major. I was flying and I loved it.

Q: What are three tips of success that you can give to aspiring actors?
DE: Don’t perform anything that doesn’t really resonate with your soul. Unless you really have to for money. Perform things that bring the best of you out.

Do not ever start to love yourself in the art. Ego is the death knife of art. There is no place for ego in acting. And yet we have to have a high self esteem.

Always come from love of your craft and respect of humanity.

Guard your ideas. Guard your sparks.

Q. What motivated you to stick to acting as a career?
DE: The initial seed was, my mother’s poetry, my grandmother singing Shakespeare sonnets, and seeing my parents perform on stage. I would look at them and say, “I want to do that!”

Q; What is a film or play that inspires you? Why?
DE: There are so many! Depending on where I am at in my life, I will flip flop and revisit things. Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, Brazil, Eraserhead, anything with Bette Davis, Clark Gabel, or Charlie Chaplin. I could go on and on and on.

It sounds so cheesy, but when someone asks me what inspires me I think of my students.  I could be going through the most horrible time, but whenever I teach I immediately lose all sorrow and regrets. It is all replenishment.

Q; Number 1 tip for auditioning?
DE: Check out your coach. Make sure your coach is a coach of worth.

Prepare, prepare, prepare.

Q: What had been your biggest accomplishment as an actor? What has been your biggest challenge?
DE: As a teacher, when student is shut down and you crack through and they shine. It transcends everything. That is my biggest accomplishment.

Career-wise, my biggest accomplishments would be directing all the Shakespeare plays, my SF Divafest play, and my work with Facebook. I am using my own voice and acting exercises for Facebook and Oculus employees.

My biggest challenge would definitely be working while my husband was dying of cancer. Having to physically leave him. Knowing that there was elastic time.

Q; Tell me about what you’re working on now.
DE: Three plays which I am completing.

Writing a book for ESL with my own phonetic system that I have designed.

My best love of all is working and teaching here.

Q: If you can be any animal in the world, what animal would you be and why?
3; It depends on my mood but I love birds. I love the idea of flying free. I would be a Kestrel. They flutter, they see very well.

About Deborah Eubanks

Deb is delighted to be teaching at the Academy. She is originally and RN Tutor from London, she specializes in speech trauma and went to work at the Covent Garden Arts with Stephen Hawking’s Company creating performance pieces for physically challenged adults.

Deb has performed in plays of Samuel Beckett, Mike Leigh, Oscar Wilde, Dario Fo, and William Shakespeare. She is currently working on a private business in which she creates her own workshops and exercises. She is coaching for Oculus Facebook.