About Casmira
Casmira Lorien
Vocal & Acting Coach
She/Her
Casmira is an experienced performer and qualified teacher with a great passion for storytelling, mental health, and vocal health.
Her teaching experience spans multiple disciplines and age groups, beginning her career as a Theatre Sports Coach, and moving into teaching young people 6months to 18 years dance, drama, and private singing lessons at Adelaide Theatre Academy. There she also headed the ‘in schools program’ taking performance workshops into various schools around South Australia as well as specialised singing workshops for the Wakkakirri Festival.
Casmira is a qualified middle/secondary teacher, and has taught Drama, Music and English ELC – Year 11 at Marryatville High School, St Peter’s College (boys) and for the last 5 years at Wilderness School.
As a performer, highlights have included performing the role of ‘Violet’ in Davine Productions’ Violet (for which she won the TASA award for Best Female Performance 2017) and ‘Fantine’ in the G&S Society’s production of Les Misérables (for which she was nominated for a Curtain Call: Best Female Performance 2018).
In 2018 she performed in Edges with Irregular Productions for the Adelaide Fringe Festival, ‘Shelby’ in Steel Magnolias with IpSkip, ‘The Lady of the Lake’ in Spamalot with Marie Clark Musical Theatre (winner of Best Ensemble Curtain Call 2018), and the ‘Sour Kangaroo’ in Seussical with Northern Light Theatre Company.
In 2019 Casmira played nine characters in Judge Jackie: Disorder in the Court with Davine Productions (which won Best Ensemble and Best Musical at the 2019 Curtain Call Awards, as well as the TASA for Best Musical) and Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme in Assassins for Hills Musical Company.
Professionally, Casmira has acted and provided voices for several short films and children’s productions. She also spent many years directing and music directing musicals for Adelaide Theatre Academy, including Snow White and Alice in Wonderland for the Festival Centre’s ‘Something on Saturday’ program. Some of her fondest memories are working with Peter Combe in directing and choreographing his Adelaide Fringe Festival shows from 2013-2015.
Why Choose Casmira?
Repertoire & Drama Coaching
I have a passion for stories and the art of storytelling, which has lead me in a variety of directions in my life. As an English and Drama teacher, I am continually absorbed in textual analysis and getting to the heart of a characters motivation. My love of singing and dancing has allowed me to combine all my skills into a love of musical theatre, and an aptitude for ‘telling a story’ through music. Whilst there are many experienced vocal coaches in Adelaide with in depth understanding of the voice, I offer selection and interpretation of repertoire as my particular specialty, and I love helping students prepare for auditions, once off performances and entire theatrical seasons by working through material and really making sense of it. My belief is that the story should come first, and a great performance is more memorable than perfect technique (and having both is even better!)
Vocal Coaching
As a performer I am aware of the many and complex challenges that can be presented to us and how this can affect vocal health, and on a deeper level, our relationship with ourselves and our voices. I have been diagnosed with a rare syndrome that means my body produces faulty collagen, and this affects every part of my body- muscles, joints, and organs. I have had periods of being very unwell and had to perform, and I’m more susceptible to vocal injury. This had lead me down the road of finding out as much as I can about how the voice works, how I can best support myself to be at my optimum through times of great challenge, and how to manage the mental health side of performance such as dealing with anxiety and trauma, arming myself with a range of strategies to trust my voice and find the joy in performance again. I am now passionate about sharing this with others, ensuring that we have an individualised approach to voice and performance that takes into account your personal case history and unique complexities. I also feel very strongly that working on shedding perfectionism and focusing on telling the story of the music will help you to locate in the joy and unique qualities of your own voice.
My Philosophy: The Whole-Hearted Performer
If you are familiar with the works of Brene Brown (if not, start with her Ted Talk, here: ) you would have heard her talk about the power of vulnerability, and living wholeheartedly. I was honestly delighted when I first came across her research because I felt like her massive body of work confirmed what I had always believed in my heart: to be vulnerable is to be powerful. When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable we allow others to connect with us in powerful ways. When we give a vulnerable performance, we reach into the hearts of our audience members and find that the magic of theatre is empathy, understanding and connection. But to be vulnerable is terrifying for most people. It exposes us to our worst fears: that we are not perfect, that we don’t know everything, that we can be jealous, out of control, even ugly (There hasn’t been a deeply emotional moment in my life that wasn’t accompanied by a red blotchy face, huge tears, and snot running down my face.) Life isn’t always beautiful, but messy life is real life and without authenticity it’s very hard to make any kind of connection. This is why someone can look flawless, sing pitch perfectly, and not move us at all, and why others can touch us deeply with their raw, wavering, rough tones. My greatest passion in life is to break through ‘cool’ (and trust me I have never, ever been cool) and ‘aloof’ and replace it with warm, and genuine. Or in Brene Browns words: show up and let myself be seen. To me that’s the ultimate courage and the ultimate goal in producing authentic and powerful performances.