Hi, well I played abit with it, and got something that works. :-) Now I'm not an expert on OO programming, so just take this as is. From what I can observe, there is somekind of problem when you you set $self->{CONN} = undef in new(), and then try to redefine it in open. So I removed the open() method, and it works from the commandline. In your cgi, there may be additional complications because of the server. Anyways, here is a working module and test script.

package Voice;

use strict;
use warnings;
require IO::Socket;

################################################# 
# Method: Voice->new 
# Description: Object Constructor method 
################################################# 
sub new {

    # bless a new object 
    shift;
    my $self = {};
    bless($self);

    # Set params passed for the object 
    my ( $server, $port ) = ( 'localhost', 1314 );

    # ::: Set Object Parameters ::: # 
    $self->{ERROR}  = undef;      # error (duh!) 
    $self->{SERVER} = $server;    # festival server 
    $self->{PORT}   = $port;      # festival port 
    $self->{PRO}    = 'tcp';      # connection protocol 
    $self->{CONN}   =  IO::Socket::INET->new(
                      Proto     => "tcp",
                      PeerAddr  => "localhost",
                      PeerPort  => 1314)
                           || die($!);

    # return the object 
    return $self;

}    # end-new 

# ----------------------------------------------- 
################################################# 
# Method: Voice->speak 
# Description: say the sentence 
################################################# 
sub speak {

    # set as method 
    my $self = shift;

    # read in the sentence 
    my ($sentence) = @_;

#    my $buffer = "(SayText \"" . $sentence . "\")\n"; 
    my $buffer = "(SayText \"" . $sentence . "\")";
#print "$buffer\n"; 

    # say the sentence 
    if ( syswrite( $self->{CONN}, $buffer, length($buffer) ) ) {
    }    # end-if 
    else {

        # set the error string 
        $self->{ERROR} = "Could not say sentence!";
    }    # end-else 

}    # end-prepare 

# ----------------------------------------------- 
################################################# 
# Method: Voice->close 
# Description: close the festival connection 
################################################# 
sub close {
    # set as method 
    my $self = shift;

    # close the IO::Socket::INET connection 
    shutdown( $self->{CONN}, 2 );
    close( $self->{CONN} );

}    # end-close 
# ----------------------------------------------- 
1;
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#test script

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use lib '.';
use Voice;

my $voice = Voice->new;

$voice->speak( 'foobar foobar foobar' );

$voice->close;
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