Romano directed voice casting and performance on Freakazoid! and on a very large proportion of American animation across three decades. Her role is one audiences rarely think about: choosing performers, then directing them in a booth toward a reading that will still work once the animation is drawn around it.
She worked in animation production before moving to voice direction, and she became the defining figure in the field during a period of exceptional American animated television. She was known for casting stage and screen actors rather than only voice specialists, and for recording ensembles together rather than separately.
Recurring subjects: ensemble chemistry, performances built through actors reacting to each other in real time, and casting against physical type since appearance is irrelevant. She insisted on group recording sessions when the industry was moving toward isolated ones, and the difference is audible in the timing of the results.
Her credits include several of the most acclaimed American animated series ever produced, across superhero, comedy and fantasy, and she won multiple industry awards. She is widely credited with establishing voice direction as a recognised discipline and with the casting choices that made those series endure.
For viewers who want to understand why certain animated series sound the way they do. Suited to anyone revisiting nineteen nineties American animation, and to those interested in a craft that is almost invisible by design.
