Integrating my stammer into acting

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Halvor (right) and actors from Akimbo Theatre (Photograph by André Nesheim)

Actor Halvor Tangen Schultz, from Akimbo Theatre, tells us how the company has integrated his stammer into their new play The Animator, showing in London on the 20^th-30^th August.

My name is Halvor and I'm part of a young, London-based physical theatre company called Akimbo Theatre. I stammer, and my colleagues and I have developed a new way of writing our scripts to accommodate my unique way of speaking. It's been a fun new development in our way of working which has had huge advantages for our theatre productions, not least for our new show The Animator. Showing at the Southwark Playhouse Borough this August, the play is based on a true story about female animation artist Lotte Reiniger, who lived in Berlin in the 1920s.

Our company uses the traditional techniques of French actor and movement coach Jaques Lecoq, which involves creating work using improvisation. This has the advantage of encouraging us to play around with big over-the-top characters. The bigger and more expressive the character is, the more 'play' I have with them, and the more fluidity I find with the text.

It’s been a fun new development in our way of working which has had huge advantages for our theatre productions.

Another advantage of this way of working is that many of the actors' unique abilities, quirks or accents naturally become part of the final script, so my stammer becomes part of my characters. For instance, in The Animator I play the German film director Carl Koch, and we found many moments of play with my stammer, discovering which characters interrupt him and who lets him carry on speaking, as well as moments of suspense as he finishes complex technical explanations.

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A scene from The Animator (Photograph by Luisa De La Concha Montes)

One of the nicest moments of discovery was a scene where an over-enthusiastic Lotte, the main character, meets Carl for the first time and continually interrupts him, leading to an explosive "NO, let me finish!". This is mirrored later when Lotte is being talked over by a man who will not let her finish a pitch for the world's first ever feature length animation. She bites back at him with the same line, and Carl sees himself in her struggle. He steps up to green light her idea and it's the moment they start falling in love. 

It wasn't all such plain sailing however. Because the play is based on historical facts and has a lot of technical jargon, we had to develop some scenes by writing them, rather than developing them from improvisation. This meant that suddenly I was valiantly battling with the text rather than it coming smoothly and more naturally. So we all sat down and looked over what we were doing, and we worked out how to write it into a rhythm that was easier for me to say. For instance:

LOTTE: Paul said you have an animation table. I was hoping I could use it for a week or two?

CARL: Ah, a week? No.

LOTTE: But he said…

CARL: You can, um ah,/

LOTTE: /Use it for five days?

CARL: No, uuh/

LOTTE:  /On the weekends

CARL: 

NO, let me finish (ssssshhhhh)

You can LOOK at it, 

if you want to, (oooooo)

but we are, ah, (aaaahhhh)

very busy so…

As you can see, we broke my character's text up, so that it was short phrases, generally with sounds at the end that I can elongate, or a nice hard 't' sound. We also ensured that the consonants I have trouble with —  'Ms' for example — were put in the middle of phrases so it was easier to roll through them. We began to hear my voice in the script again and from there we were flying.

As stammering can be challenging, I am very grateful to be with a team that's open and helpful. I am very much looking forward to performing this play, and telling Lotte's story! 

Rosanna Mallison, also from Akimbo Theatre, said, "Halvor is a phenomenal actor to work with and integrating his stammer into the work has been a joyful process. Changing how we write the scripts has been very helpful in teaching us how to honestly write voices as actual voices rather than 'text', which can be such a trap in the early stages of script writing".

The Animator is on at the Southwark Playhouse Borough, from the 20^th to 30^th August 2025. Book tickets at the Southwark Playhouse Borough website.

Read more Your Voice articles.

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