American accents in 1930s
Sat, 22 Oct 2005, 07:28 pmWalter Plinge8 posts in thread
American accents in 1930s
Sat, 22 Oct 2005, 07:28 pmhi I take drama in high school and one of my asignments at the moment is to create a soap opera performance for theatre. My 5 friends and I have decided to do something different so we are having our play set in 1939 during the war between america and Japan. Rather than it being about the men at war it is about the women's lives and how they are affected by the men being away and dying, at this time they are working in a munitions factory (making weapons and bombs).
Our characters are all different but we all speak american in the 1930 to 1940s style (i have also heard there were a lot of immigrants living in america mainly from ireland and england, would this affect the accent of our characters?). Does anyone know how to do these accents? how and does anyone know any films that are on video/dvd that show the accents? HELP! I have no idea how to do these accents.
Our characters are all different but we all speak american in the 1930 to 1940s style (i have also heard there were a lot of immigrants living in america mainly from ireland and england, would this affect the accent of our characters?). Does anyone know how to do these accents? how and does anyone know any films that are on video/dvd that show the accents? HELP! I have no idea how to do these accents.
Re: See my other post - American accents 1943
Mon, 24 Oct 2005, 05:30 pmBrenda wrote:
>
> Not sure this really impacts your performance, but just for
> accuracy, America did not enter World War II until the
> bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which didnt' happen til
> 1941.
>
> don't worry so much about the sound of the American accent as
> the rythyms of the time. you should be able to rent any
> movie from that time period and get a feel for the speed,
> pace, and slang. Also, there was a show called 'Homefront'
> that ran for a few years in the states that was about this
> period in american history and did focus on the girls. My
> mom swore that it was perfectly accurate (i'm american). not
> sure if it's available readily on DVD.
Good advice, similar to the answer I already posted on the other forum (sometimes it's NOT a good idea to post on every forum, because it then becomes really confusing to try and follow the replies..!)
http://www.theatre.asn.au/read.php?f=18&i=7072&t=7071
Also, munitions factories were set up all over the country, but I'm not so sure about in Brooklyn itself, which is really only a borough of New York. The largest munitions centre was in Detroit, Michigan, which was where a major automobile industry was already established...so the factories were easily converted. Major aircraft manufacturing went on in California and in Kansas...but I'm sure there were plenty of other locations.
See if you can't research one on the web and then set it there.
Cheers,
Craig
>
> Not sure this really impacts your performance, but just for
> accuracy, America did not enter World War II until the
> bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which didnt' happen til
> 1941.
>
> don't worry so much about the sound of the American accent as
> the rythyms of the time. you should be able to rent any
> movie from that time period and get a feel for the speed,
> pace, and slang. Also, there was a show called 'Homefront'
> that ran for a few years in the states that was about this
> period in american history and did focus on the girls. My
> mom swore that it was perfectly accurate (i'm american). not
> sure if it's available readily on DVD.
Good advice, similar to the answer I already posted on the other forum (sometimes it's NOT a good idea to post on every forum, because it then becomes really confusing to try and follow the replies..!)
http://www.theatre.asn.au/read.php?f=18&i=7072&t=7071
Also, munitions factories were set up all over the country, but I'm not so sure about in Brooklyn itself, which is really only a borough of New York. The largest munitions centre was in Detroit, Michigan, which was where a major automobile industry was already established...so the factories were easily converted. Major aircraft manufacturing went on in California and in Kansas...but I'm sure there were plenty of other locations.
See if you can't research one on the web and then set it there.
Cheers,
Craig