Grover Gardner (b 1956) [1] is an American narrator of audiobooks. As of May 2018, he has narrated over 1,200 books. [2] He was the Publishers Weekly "Audiobook Narrator of the Year" (2005) and is among AudioFile magazine's "Best Voices of the Century". [2]
Video Grover Gardner narrates | |
Gardner is a native of Pennsylvania. [1] He attended high school in Belgium. [1] He graduated from Florida's Rollins College in 1978 as a theater major. [1]
In 1981, Gardner was an actor in the Washington, D.C. region, working at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company under Howard Shalwitz. [4] He won a number of lead actor awards for plays such as Metamorphoses and The Rocky Horror Show .
Gardner heard about and auditioned for the Library of Congress' Books for the Blind Program. He worked at fellow theater actor Flo Gibson's Audio Book Contractors in the DC region to produce classic literature on cassette tape. Over time, his acting career tapered off and audiobooks took over. [1] Eventually he established his own independent studio in Maryland where he recorded books for Books on Tape. [5] In 2007, he moved to Ashland, Oregon where he became Studio Director of Blackstone Audio. [5]
Gardner has also narrated under the aliases Tom Parker and Alexander Adams.
Gardner was reviewed by journalist John Schwartz in The New York Times , who called him "a wry narrator with a mellow, regular-guy voice" who "is remarkably companionable and conveys the feeling he’s enjoying the book as much as you are, with a smile that is somehow audible." [6] Musician Greg Saunier said Gardner had a "simultaneously smooth and gravelly voice" with "a constantly varying pace and musical inflection". [7] Another critic described his voice as "sandpaper and velvet". [2]
Jim Dale is an English actor, composer, director, narrator, singer and songwriter. In the United Kingdom he is known as a pop singer of the 1950s who became a leading actor at the National Theatre. In British film, along with Angela Douglas he is now one of the last two surviving actors to appear in multiple Carry On films.
Walter Stacy Keach Jr. is an American actor, active in theatre, film and television since the 1960s. Keach first distinguished himself in Off-Broadway productions and remained a prominent figure in American theatre across his career, particularly as a noted Shakespearean. He is the recipient of several theatrical accolades, four Drama Desk Awards, two Helen Hayes Awards and two Obie Awards for Distinguished Performance by an Actor. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in Arthur Kopit's 1969 production of Indians.
Martin Jarvis OBE is an English actor. Described by the BBC as "one of Britain's most distinguished and versatile actors", he has had a varied career in theatre, film and television, and is particularly noted for radio acting and voicing audiobooks.
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The Helen Hayes Awards are given to resident theatre productions in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. They include awards for the production itself, the direction, the acting, design and the stage plays themselves.
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Simon Micawber Prebble is a British-American narrator. Initially a stage actor, he has a wide-ranging career in television drama, was a game show announcer in Britain, and a voice-over narrator for film and television. In recent years, he has narrated a large number of audiobooks and received an Audie in 2010.
Ralph Howard Cosham, was a British-born American film, stage and voice actor and book narrator. Cosham also recorded under the name Geoffrey Howard. He lived in Reston, Virginia. He was a member of the acting companies of the Washington Theatre Club, the Folger Shakespeare Library, Arena Stage and the Shakespeare Theater all in Washington, DC. Cosham changed careers from British journalist to actor in the 1970s. Several of his works were awarded "Audio Best of the Year" by Publishers Weekly.
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Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is a non-profit theatre company located at 641 D Street NW in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1980, it produces new plays which it believes to be edgy, challenging, and thought-provoking. Performances are in a 265-seat courtyard-style theater.
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