Does anyone have any advice on developing a specific accent? I want to audition for a character that is from Brooklyn. I don't have any real acting experience so I don't know what to do. I thought about a tape or something to practice with but I don't even know what to look for. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Renea

Just a suggestion, but unless you were or are asked to audition with an accent, I wouldnt worry about it too much right now.  By all means, gain the skill, but often when accents are involved, actors can try so hard to nail the accent that it misplaces engery that should be going into the character/reading.

As one who has sat on many auditing boards, the accent would be of little concern to me at that stage in the game. But that of course is just me.

Lalunabella

It really depends on what kind of a learner you are too. I am an audio learner so I listen to other movies etc that have that accent and I pick it up (Neil simon does alot of Brooklyn accents Biloxi Blues, Brighton Beach, Last of the Red Hot Lovers etc). I also bought the Paul Meier system and it is wonderful it is about $100.00 but it has ever accent you can think of for theatre so its well worth it. It has the book,cd and then real life person recordings as well.

Break a leg :)

Being born there helps, too.  (Just a bit of levity!)

Actually, I was born and raised on Long Island, and am able finally (after years of trying NOT to have the accent) to feel comfortable doing it.  And what really gets my goat is when people automatically assume I am doing a Jewish accent, a completely different animal!  (I should point out that I now live in Ohio.)  I can do Jewish NY too, but I guess watching so many Neil Simon shows/movies has made people from the mid-section of the country assume that any NY/NJ accent is Jewish.  I played Emma in "Over the River and Through the Woods" 2 seasons ago, and I still have people come up to me and comment on when I played "that old Jewish lady".  I gently point out to them that the character was Italian......which is sort of the whole point of the play! 

Question:  does anyone else have this particular problem?  I grew up practically living with my Scottish grandparents, who both had very strong Aberdeen accents.  And yet, a Scottish accent is one of the  few that I'm not able to do!  Any ideas why this is so?

I would ask the director if he or she wants to hear accents or not. 

The most annoying performance I ever saw was a woman playing the mother in Beau Jest (a good play, by the way).  She was affecting a Skokie Jewish accent.

What was annoying about it was, she was, in fact, a Jewish woman from Skokie, and had no such accent in real life.

I read a story once, about an older actor who was returning to the stage, and who immediately began stooping, shuffling, mumbling and whatnot.  The director stopped him and said, "You don't need to play age.  You ARE age."

An accent can be a stereotype like any other.  Or it can be a useful tool.  In an audition, it tends to be more of the former than the latter.  I wouldn't do one without checking first.

As to the actual question , the series of tapes called "Acting With An Accent" are good.  They may be the ones Tristan mentioned, I don't know, nor do I know if they cover the specific accent you want.

I've found this website VERY useful - though I've been doing accents since I was a LITTLE little kid.  I've passed this site on to my nephew's college theatre group, who found it equally helpful.  It has a good variety of dialects.