Shanna Pennington

Shana Pennington-Baird is the founder and head coach at the Seattle Voice Academy. She helps students find their own unique style singing, speaking, creating memorable characters, and exploring new places with the human voice.

Shana started her work in the professional theatre scene in Seattle in 1996, following an international tour with the Missoula Children’s Theatre. Prior to that, she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BFA in theatre from Stephens College. In Seattle, she performed at the Bathhouse Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, Oregon Cabaret, Book-It Repertory, and Cabaret Productions.

After starting a family, Ms. Pennington-Baird entered the voiceover world and immediately found herself narrating audiobooks, performing voice work for corporations, including Microsoft, Verizon, JP Morgan Chase, the Seattle Channel, South Lake Union Chamber, Audible.com, Mountain Credit Union, Impossible Acoustic and voicing characters for independent video games all over the world, including Illustrum Games.

While performing at the Village Theatre in Issaquah, Washing in the mid-1990’s, Shana was diagnosed with vocal nodes at 24 years of age. Ms. Pennington-Baird immediately left the show at Village Theatre, began months of speech therapy and has full use of her voice today.

After 2009, Ms. Pennington-Baird continued exploration into the human voice training with the Tuscany Project in Prague and then the ROY HART CENTRE at Malérargues in the Cévennes hills of southern France. The work at the Centre is based on a history of more than 80 years of research, study and practice of the human voice without boundaries. At the ROY HART CENTRE, her training has been dedicated to exploring unusual vocal flexibility and expressiveness and the human voice’s application in life and art.

In addition to acting and voice work, Ms. Pennington-Baird produced four years of concerts and theatre arts while managing the Renton IKEA Performing Arts Center. In addition, she also planned and managed play reading festivals and summer camps for the Icicle Creek Theatre Festival. And through her work in fundraising with ACT Theatre and Puget Soundkeeper, she raised millions of dollars through grants, major donor campaigns, corporate relationships and galas.