Ms. Ward was the Voice and Dialect coach at the Stratford Festival in Canada for four seasons. She has worked as an assistant director and Voice coach at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax. Her teaching credits include: George Brown College, Ryerson Polytechnic University, The National Theatre School, Dalhousie University, Acadia University, the University of Saskatchewan. She has taught numerous workshops ranging from “Speaking Classical Text” at Wayne State University, Michigan to “Speech and Text” at the Stephenville Festival in Newfoundland. She has been a visiting instructor at The Actor’s Workshop in Toronto.

Dialectology is a particular expertise she brings to the profession. Selected dialect work includes: Equity Showcase productions of Cloud 9 and Our Country’s Good. Some of her credits in feature film include: Glenne Headly in Ordinary Magic; Brenda Fricker in Swann; Giancarlo Giannini and Andy Velasquez in Heaven Before I Die. Other dialect credits in film include: Wind at My Back, The Midnight Hour, Canadian Bacon, Waiting for Michelangelo, Promise of Heaven, Dear America and Ultimate Betrayal. She has worked with actors on set and in studio for such campaigns as Oil of Olay for North American audiences.

Ms. Ward’s own training has included working with private dialect tutors at the Juilliard School of Music, New York and RADA, London, England. She holds degrees from the University of Saskatchewan and a certificate in Voice Studies from the Central School of Speech and Drama, London, England. She attended the Toronto School of the Alexander Technique and is a member of the Canadian Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique; she taught the Alexander Technique privately in Toronto for ten years. Her work continues in a new studio in Rosthern, Saskatchewan, just 40 minutes from Saskatoon.