Tips For Vocal Health

Sick before opening night? Dried out vocal cords in the winter? Losing your voice from overexertion? Broadway professionals, including vocal experts, performers and more, share their secrets to remain in good voice.

Vocal health is crucial for a performer, especially in an eight-show week environment. Playbill.com speaks with go-to vocal coach Liz Caplan (read more about her in our Booking It! column) and performers who have faced the biggest sings on Broadway: Shoshana Bean (the first replacement for Idina Menzel's Elphaba in the blockbuster musical Wicked), Constantine Maroulis (a Tony Award nominee for Rock of Ages, a show that requires vocal pyrotechnics), Ramin Karimloo (a Tony nominee who currently stars as Jean Valjean, one of the biggest male roles in the musical theatre cannon, in the Broadway revival of Les Misérables) and Melissa Errico (a Tony nominee who underwent vocal surgery following her performance in the most recent Off-Broadway staging of Stephen Sondheim's Passion). They share their secrets and talk about how to maintain in good voice when under the weather.

Winter Blues

Liz Caplan: The winter months in NYC are challenging for the singer/actor. Keeping the neck and throat warm are of paramount importance. In Chinese medicine, the head (base of skull), neck and throat are referred to as wind points. If you are feeling vulnerable in any way (this includes both physically and emotionally), and you get a draft or chill on these areas, it's likely that the seasonal bug will get you.

I recommend to all my students to stick to drinking warm or hot beverages and cooked food. The lungs tend toward dampness during these months, so warm beverages and warm/hot food will help remove the clammy cold feeling.  

These next recommendations for the season come with a caveat:

Hot and spicy foods and condiments actually increase metabolism (heat) and clear all sorts of phlegm from lungs and mucus from sinuses from stagnation. However (big however), spicy foods tend to create acidity in the throat. We have to be careful as to when we take such foods in.

Turmeric, oregano, garlic and cinnamon help to get mucus and phlegm stagnation out. Wasabi is also excellent. Imagine how your body reacts when you eat wasabi. You tear up and generally get a runny nose. This is actually excellent--things are moving and moving out.

Excellent winter foods:

Apples
Brussels sprouts
Parsnips
Pears
Rutabagas
Cauliflower
Winter Squash (There are many varieties of winter squash — including butternut, acorn, delicata and spaghetti squash — and they are all excellent choices in the winter.)
Pumpkin
Sweet potatoes
Turnips
Pomegranates
Dates
Grapefruit
Tangerines

Dark leafy greens (such as kale, chard and collards; [they] thrive in the chill of winter when the rest of the produce section looks bleak. In fact, a frost can take away the bitterness of kale. These greens are particularly rich in vitamins A, C and K).

Melissa Errico: This winter I am not in a musical, but when the twins were eight months old and Victoria was three years old, I played Betty in White Christmas on Broadway and never missed a show! I made sure to get seven-eight hours of sleep a night, took vitamins D3 and B12, and I drank an Emergen-C vitamin drink almost every day and must have had a half gallon of water myself every single day.

The challenge was the days when we were invited to do early-morning television, like "Good Morning America," and had to wake up at 5 AM to be on the TV set before a two-show day or sometimes a nine-show holiday schedule. I was so appreciative of the opportunity (and loved my red dress!) that I just plowed through a few sleepy days. This winter, I have concerts almost every other week, so in a way it's differently challenging when you aren't on a structured schedule. I have time off and then have to rally again.  Like all actors, its hard to maintain discipline when there isn't a rehearsal, show or audition focusing our minds. We have to keep up good routines even when no one is needing us!