Brown, Emilie

Emilie Colleen de Azevedo Brown (born January 26, 1971 in Encino, California) is an American voice actress. Before moving out of the Los Angeles area, she did several anime voice roles mostly under the names Emily Brown and Mary Cobb. One of her earliest voice acting roles was Annie Labelle in the 1980s crossover anime hit Robotech when she was 13 years old. In 2001, Emilie teamed up with her sister Rachel Coleman to create Signing Time!—an entertaining children's public television and video series that teaches basic American Sign Language (ASL) to children of all abilities. In 1996, Rachel and her husband Aaron discovered that their oldest daughter Leah was deaf. From the beginning, they have found that teaching her 'hearing' peers even a few basic signs builds bonds of friendship and community that every child needs. Emilie's first son, Alex—one year younger than Leah-- made his first sign at 10 months of age by telling his mom he wanted "milk." Emilie has seen first-hand the communication benefits that ASL offers all children, including miraculous results for children with special needs. In addition to being a mom, Emilie is the co-creator, director, and producer of the Signing Time series. After graduating from Brigham Young University in 1996 with a theatre degree, she continued her career in the entertainment industry, doing voiceover work for countless TV and radio commercials, cartoons, CD-ROMs, television shows and major motion pictures. Emilie has been the creative force behind the development of concepts, scripts, film and post-production of over 26 Signing Time! episodes, as well as Baby Signing Time, Practice Time and all other Two Little Hands Productions.