Stephen James Smith

Who is Stephen James Smith?

"Helping people to help each other"

Stephen James is a voice-actor in every sense of the word: from voicing commercials and video narration, to performing both fiction and non-fiction audio-book narrations, to performing live radio drama on stage - Stephen has performed in just about every genre of voice acting.

He even dedicates his professional expertise as a non-paid CEO of The National Voice Talent Foundation - a non-profit he founded in 2009 to provide affordable education and opportunities to performers and to support the community.

Also a prolific writer, Stephen studied English, Art, and Drama at college, where he trained to be a teacher; while he has been involved with voice-over since the the mid-70's. Stephen emigrated to the USA in 1997 at the culmination of an illustrious career in public relations and marketing, and decided to develop his abilities as a performer by concentrating on voice acting. He was an active member of Media Guilds International in Las Vegas and became a Member of the Royal Society for the Arts.

Following his move to New Orleans, where he subsequently married his wife Deborah, Stephen formed The NOLA Voice Talent Foundation in 2009; dedicating his work to providing affordable coaching to actors and voice performers in the New Orleans region, and to encouraging them to use their talents in support of the community.

Since then, Stephen has developed the non-profit Foundation by providing hugely-popular workshop programs across the length and breadth of the Gulf coast states. The nominal workshop fees go direct to the Foundation, through which Stephen has also raised tens of thousands of dollars for local communities from productions such as the annual radio-play production of "It's a Wonderful Life" (which recently enjoyed its 10th year) and the bi-annual NVT Awards (now in its seventh year and re-branded "The Hollywood South Awards"), as well as the radio-play revival series of "The Whistler", launched in 2018 and scheduled for a "return" production in March 2019.

Louisiana's favorite voice coach

Stephen has worked with hundreds of students across the USA, not only along Gulf coast states but also for students as far apart as New York and Los Angeles and, in 2015, was awarded "Louisiana's Favorite Voice Coach" by the USA entertainment industry publication "Backstage", following the publication's independent survey of his peers.

Stephen was appointed to the Board of Governors of The National Association of Non-profit Organizations and Executives (NANOE) for 2017 and was re-appointed to the same board for 2018. In 2017 Stephen also earned the credentials Certified Non-profit Executive (CNE), Certified Development Executive (CDE), and Certified Non-profit Consultant (CNC),

Stephen believes strongly in encouraging people and communities to help each other and is enjoying developing The NOLA Voice Talent Foundation as a nationwide resource through which organizations and individuals can participate in helping to meet his visions of supporting the community while providing opportunities for all performers.

Further information about Stephen James at: www.stephenjamesvoice.com