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Abbey Toot is a dedicated musician teaching private lessons online and in the Raleigh-Durham area.
University of California
Master of Fine Arts: Performance
University of Evansville
Bachelor of Science: Theater Performance
Abbey Toot
Voice

Abbey Toot coaches acting, auditioning, voice and speech, storytelling, conflict resolution and public speaking, in addition to teaching private piano and voice lessons. She has taught at the University of California, Irvine and at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. An actor as well as an educator, she currently serves as Company Manager for PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, NC. 

Abbey received her MFA from the University of California, Irvine and her BS in Theater Performance from the University of Evansville. She considers herself a lifelong student and is continuing to study the Emotional Body and somatic sensing/emotional effector patterns with Laura Bond, and will be certified in the Miller Voice Method in June of 2019. Abbey has studied with some of the country's most innovative voice and speech explorers, including Scott Miller, Catherine Fitzmaurice, Phil Thompson, Dudley Knight, John Patrick, Cynthia Bassham and others. She remains constantly curious about breath, air flow, support, body movement, emotional and environmental influence, oral posture, social and cultural influences on oral posture and--always--tension release. These curiosities drive Abbey as both a teacher and a performer.

Abbey began taking piano lessons at age 8 and grew up with the same piano teacher for 10 years (who is still a mentor and friend!). Abbey took singing lessons throughout high school, college and graduate school. Much of the voice teaching she does now centers around breath, whether it's in the context of singing or acting: breath as vibration resulting in communication. She works from a goal of freeing the voice, finding play and personal expression in the voice and the body. Abbey has found that tension habits can begin forming at an early age and those habits can trap cohesive communication coming from the musician, regardless of instrument; Abbey's work is to help guide that release for students of all ages. Much of the fun challenge of teaching is finding the ways in for each individual, whether it's more play-oriented, more intellectual and scientific, or more somatic and sensory. Anything related to the voice is so personal and can, thus, be very vulnerable and hard to share for so many reasons. Abbey's goal is always to help bring out more of the person she's working with--more authentic communication, less tension and holding.


Abbey spent five years acting in Chicago and is delighted to be back in the south where she enjoys being outside with her husband and their amazing rescue greyhound dog, Twyla, reading, daydreaming and investigating life.

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