Hugh Klitzke on the Conversational Read – and Why Most Coaches Are Actually Just Directing

This month we're joined by Hugh Klitzke – New York-based voiceover coach, director, and the person behind conversational VO. We met Hugh at One Voice UK last year (we won a pub quiz together, which felt like a good omen) and we've been wanting to get him on the podcast ever since.

Hugh spent nearly 15 years directing over 125,000 voiceover auditions at Buchwald talent agency in New York. He now specialises in one thing: the conversational read. Not a genre. Not a style. A way of performing that the industry has been asking for for years – and that a surprising number of experienced voices still struggle to deliver.

In this episode, we get into why that is.

We talk about what "conversational" actually means technically – and it turns out it's far more specific than "just sound natural." Hugh draws on prosody, tessitura, vowel length, consonant weight, and the emotional centre of copy to explain what's actually going wrong when a read sounds like an announcement rather than a conversation. It's the kind of episode where you'll want to take notes.

We also talk about:

• Why the British relationship to broadcast media creates a genuinely different challenge around the conversational read
• The difference between directing and coaching – and why Hugh thinks most coaches are doing the former without realising it
• Why cold reading is overrated, and the one question that can shift everything
• How a chance meeting with a speech pathologist changed the way Hugh teaches
• Hugh's Open Studio – a free, live, fortnightly Zoom session where you can watch him coach in real time, no paywall in sight
• AI voices, mouth clicks, and why perfection is starting to feel like a problem

Hugh also shares the story of how he ended up at Buchwald – scoring a film for no money, selling phones at Radio Shack, and a favour that changed everything.

If you've ever felt like your read is almost there but not quite landing, this one's for you.

Find Hugh at http://conversationalvo.com/ and look for Open Studio in the menu to join a free live session.

👋🏻 Your hosts are ⁠Rob Bee⁠ and ⁠Helen Bee⁠.

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Podcast sponsored by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠B Double E⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Theme tune by Rob Bee.

All audio production by Rob Bee.