In a quest to become an actress, Emma Sherr-Ziarko ’07 finds success behind the microphone
Emma Sherr-Ziarko ’07 always dreamed of using her voice as an actress. What she didn’t know is that she’d eventually find a calling where her voice alone would take center stage.
Sherr-Ziarko grew up wanting to perform. She spent years on the Williston Theater stage—first in the Williston Summer Stage program, then as a six-year student. She continued acting through college, majoring in theater at Wesleyan University. But fresh out of college, Sherr-Ziarko stared down a reality that many actors face: Work was hard to come by.
Living in New York, her dreams of getting on stage as a dramatic actress—Sherr-Ziarko has a passion for Shakespeare’s work, in particular—were petering out. That’s when a friend from Wesleyan reached out and asked her if she wanted to try a voice-acting gig.
“I had no idea what that was at the time,” Sherr-Ziarko said. “But I said, ‘Absolutely, yes.’”
That decision jump-started her voice-acting career and has resulted in awards that offer proof positive she made the right decision.
That first call led Sherr-Ziarko to playing the role of Renée Minkowski in the indie hit podcast Wolf 359. The show revolves around the research station U.S.S. Hephaestus that is 7.8 light-years away from Earth. Minkowski is one of the main characters, and Sherr-Ziarko’s character appeared on 59 of the show’s 61 episodes. Since its launch, the show, which ran from 2014 through 2017, has been downloaded millions of times and maintains a place of significance in the fiction podcast scene. Sherr-Ziarko traveled to London in the summer of 2025 to sit on a panel about the show during London Podcast Festival.
“I really fell in love with voice acting,” Sherr-Ziarko says, recalling what it was like to be part of Wolf 359 as a novice voice actor. “It was a godsend for me as a performer, as I wasn’t getting much stage work. Then I just ran with it over the past 10 years, growing my skills as a voice actor specifically and learning about the industry and the market.”
Today, Sherr-Ziarko’s credits include nearly 40 audio dramas, dozens of video games—including in the Marvel and Ghostbusters universes—commercials, narrations, and a burgeoning career as an acting coach. In August 2025, her work on the show The Strata earned her a One Voice Conference award in the Audio Drama Best Performance—Female category. Excuse her, then, if she also wants to dispel a notion about her line of work.
Sherr-Ziarko with her 2025 One Voice Conference award in the Audio Drama Best Performance—Female category
“A lot of people think voice acting sounds super easy—you just make funny voices and talk to yourself in a closet,” she says. “In reality, it’s much more challenging, in many ways, than being on stage or on screen because you have to create everything in your mind. You have to create so much in your imagination…there’s so much that you have to do yourself.”
Doing things herself is a common theme in Sherr-Ziarko’s journey. The one downside to starting off with a hit show like Wolf 359 is that work was again hard to find once the show wrapped up. Then, during the COVID lockdown, she had another epiphany. Never much of a video game enthusiast growing up, Sherr-Ziarko now had free time to explore the genre, and she was drawn in particular to Mass Effect, a game whose female lead character is voiced by Jennifer Hale. Hale has appeared in a huge number of video game roles, so many that she holds a Guinness Book of World Records spot for the number of appearances she’s made.
Intrigued, Sherr-Ziarko started following Hale’s career more closely. “Right around the time I started following her, [Hale] started a website called SkillsHub, where you can get coaching, take classes, get training, and basically get guidance,” Sherr-Ziarko says. Sherr-Ziarko not only took classes, but started coaching herself. “I worked with her and she has become my mentor, as well as some other wonderful folks in the industry.”
Now her workload is far more steady. Her teaching career is blossoming—when Sherr-Ziarko recently announced a new class she was teaching on SkillsHub, it filled immediately—and her work in both dramas and video games is growing, particularly in video games.
“I love video game acting because there is such a wide range of characters that you can be in video games,” she says, noting roles like Moon Baby (a “cheerful, Southern trucker lady”) in the space-set game Star Trucker. “I love doing work in different dialects. I’ve taken classes with creature voice experts, so I’d love to do more creature voices at some point.
“One of the core truths of acting, not to sound too pretentious, is you have to find yourself in the character, no matter what it is. It’s been cool to expand what ‘myself’ is, and I think that voice acting has really let me do that and shown me what my own range is.”
Sherr-Ziarko records mostly out of a home studio setup in her Santa Fe, New Mexico, home that she shares with her partner, Gwen Shaw, and two cats. What she’s working on next is a closely guarded secret.
“I am under a nondisclosure agreement for a lot of it,” she says with a laugh, “but there are a couple video games I’ve recorded which will hopefully be out before the end of the year. And then a bunch of audio drama stuff.”
She’s also keeping her theater dreams alive—albeit in a very voice-actor fashion. She’s launching a new podcast this fall titled “The Pod’s the Thing,” where she will invite actors together to read through a scene from Shakespeare, then break down the text itself and the historical context of the work.
Not bad for an actor who got her start performing Shakespeare at Williston.
“Williston really supported and nurtured my creativity in a way not all high school experiences give you,” she says. “I would absolutely say if I hadn’t gone to Williston, my life would not look like what it looks like now.”
Where to Hear Emma’s Voice
- Sherr-Ziarko’s catalog of work is extensive. Here are a few of the major roles she has taken on over the years.
- Renée Minkowski, Wolf 359 audio drama
- Tessa, The Strata audio drama
- Kate Pryde, Marvel Move’s X-Men: Age of Orchis app
- Wendy, Ghostbusters: The Cursed Collection video game
- Lilly, Deep Beyond video game
- Moon Baby, Star Trucker video game
- Light, Zero Hours audio drama
- Story narration for Entertainment Weekly, Fast Company, InStyle, and Foregin Affairs
- Host, The Pod’s The Thing podcast—coming soon!
Find her online: Learn more about Sherr-Ziarko on her website, emmasherrziarko.com. Otherwise, find her on X orInstagram @TheGreatDilemma.
Talk Tips
Sherr-Ziarko’s top tips for improving your vocal range and having more command over how you sound
Use Your Breath Sherr-Ziarko says the number one key to projecting your voice better is to breathe properly. “Taking theater classes or singing lessons will help you learn how that works and how you can control it and deepen it,” she says.
Release the Tension “Part of the trick of freeing your voice is releasing tension,” Sherr-Ziarko says. “I was trained in Linklater Voice Technique, which was life-changing.” Fear not, though, if a technique seems hard to pick up. “Shaking out, dancing, or generally doing something to release tension in your body will make it easier for you to speak freely.”
E-nun-ci-ate! It might seem obvious, but making sure you are speaking clearly (and loudly) makes a world of difference. “In theater, you have to be really precise with how you enunciate in order for the audience to hear you clearly,” Sherr-Ziarko says. “Tongue twisters, vocal warmups, and working on Shakespeare really help.”
But Enunciate with Care Sherr-Ziarko noted that when it comes to microphone work, a bit of a deft touch also helps. “Sibilants (‘s’ and ‘z’) and plosives (‘p’ and ‘b’) can make the mic pop—and you don’t want that,” she says. “So you’ve got to tone down the enunciation to just the right extent.”