CEO and lead instructor
The proud founder of Competitive Edge Voice Training and the Character Acting Academy, Eliza Jane Schneider is a veteran actor and dialect coach whose clients include celebrities, politicians, A-list directors, AAA game companies and major studios such as Disney, Warner Brothers, Universal, Paramount, Fox, Dreamworks, Hulu, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Comedy Central.
Renowned for voicing the female population of Comedy Central’s South Park, Eliza has an extensive list of credits in some of the most popular animations and video games. As a coach, she has helped perfect the accents and dialects of countless colleagues, from beginners, to Oscar winners, to the casts of Overwatch, Mafia 3 and Resident Evil, among many others.
An avid researcher, Eliza has dedicated her life to the study of voice and dialects. For her extensive Dialect Database, she traveled six continents, recording thousands of people speaking English in their native dialects. An activist and proud advocate for underserved communities, she is committed to preserving these dialects and allowing all unsung voices to be heard.
In Pygmalion fashion, Eliza has created a curriculum which incorporates the collective wisdom of her favorite working mentors, colleagues, coaches, professors, directors, casting directors and voice stars, to level the playing field and give every voice a chance to soar.
A woman of many talents, Eliza got her on-camera start as “Liza” in Beakman’s World. She won Best Solo Show at the NYC International Fringe Festival, and is also a world-class fiddler.
In 30 years of research and teaching, I have traversed the world, interviewing for authentic accents and working on major animated projects.
I’m excited to share that work with you at Competitive Edge Voice Training and my Character Acting Academy!
I look forward to hearing your voice.
COMPetitive edge founder
Competitive Edge Voice Training was founded by Eliza Jane Schneider in 2015 to give voice to the unsung.
Using cutting edge, revolutionary voice training techniques developed by Schneider and her voice acting colleagues over the past 3 decades, CEVT’s mission is to empower anyone who speaks English to turn their voice into their greatest asset, whether they do character voice acting, public speaking, or any business wherein mastery of English pronunciation is fundamental to success. CEVT students are actors, ESL speakers, lawyers and leaders.
The Character Acting Academy began in 1992 as Eliza Doolittle Dialects. Eliza began teaching her Dialect Master Class series, using Suzuki ear-training techniques to help actors nail auditions and perfect their accents and dialects. In 1997 she joined forces with Robert Easton, aka The Henry Higgins of Hollywood, to form Higgins and Doolittle, helping ESL actors, lawyers, and others in the entertainment industry and corporate sector to elevate their status and their bottom line by mastering their pronunciation of General American English. In the tradition of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, they dialect coached a slew of A-list actors into Oscar nominations and wins.