Strasberg has taken a number of liberties with the material as it was originally conceived by Stanislavsky. He claims that he is teaching Stanislavski’s method, but he is in fact teaching his own interpretation of it.
At the time Strasberg arrived in the United States (1932), there were two Russian schools of acting competing for prominence: the Moscow Art Theatre and the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre (the “Method” school). The first, led by Constantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, advocated a system for training actors based on well-defined rules. The second, led by Leopold Sulerzhitsky, director and theoretician at The First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre, taught an approach to acting that was more intuitive and less codified than that of Stanislavski.
In his book An Actor’s Work on a Role, Konstantin Stanislavski writes: “It seems to me that what we call ‘method’ has been created out of thin air by our would-be gurus. I have never had a ‘method’, nor do I know anything about one.” In fact, Stanislavski did not use or teach any such thing as
The Method, as espoused by Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, was a revolutionary process for actors to approach their roles. Instead of relying on the external, emotional tools of acting, Strasberg believed that the actor should rely on his own personal experience to infuse the role with honest emotion. The Method was an attempt to place craft in the service of art. Strasberg’s idea that actors should become alive and responsive on stage and screen had an astounding effect.
Strasberg’s goals for actors were dictated by his own private vision of what theater and film should be. He wanted to create a theater where actors could respond spontaneously to any situation that might occur during a performance; he wanted to free them from dependence on the printed word and its superficial meanings. In this way, he hoped to help actors express themselves more deeply and personally–to reveal their inner selves through their work in front of an audience. Strasberg also wanted to create a “system” which would allow every actor access to his own emotions, memories, and psychological responses. He believed that every human being had within himself all the resources he needed for great acting; it was up to the teacher or director only to show him how to use these resources.
The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute is a non-profit institution founded by the actor, director and acting teacher Lee Strasberg in 1969 to teach and promote the techniques of method acting. The institute has a relationship with New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. The Institute is currently under the artistic direction of Anna Strasberg, Lee’s widow. The institute was founded by Lee Strasberg in 1969 to teach and preserve the techniques of method acting. The school began as the Actors Studio and was home to the Group Theatre.[1] This original group consisted of Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, Cheryl Crawford, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner and Harold Clurman, who provided training for actors who were members of the Group Theatre.
The institute offers three levels of classes: Professional Workshop (for those pursuing acting careers), General Education (for people who want to learn how to act but do not necessarily want to become professional actors) and Young People’s (for kids in elementary school through high school). There is also a pre-professional Summer Intensive held every summer.
The Institute has many prominent teachers on its faculty including Tom Waits, Estelle Parsons, Mark Rydell, Susan Aston, Robert Castle, Cara Seymour and Al Pac
The Method, as taught by Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, is a system of acting in which the actor recalls emotions or reactions from his or her own life and uses them to identify with the character being portrayed.
Lee Strasberg was a method actor and director who was born on November 17, 1901 in Budzanow in Austria-Hungary (now Budaniv in Ukraine). When he was 9 years old, his family immigrated to the United States. He directed the Actors Studio in New York City and the actors studio west in Hollywood.
In 1931 Strasberg joined the Group Theatre, a New York City theatre collective closely associated with the Communist Party. The Group Theatre included such actors as Stella Adler, Elia Kazan, John Garfield and Robert Lewis. This collective was revolutionary for its time because it insisted that its members use Stanislavski’s System in their acting.
Strasberg became one of the best acting teachers of his day. He had a reputation for being able to get exceptional performances from his students by calling upon them to draw upon personal emotions from their own lives to inform their work on stage. Some of his students included James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro.
Lee Strasberg (born Israel Strassberg; November 17, 1901 – February 17, 1982) was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He co-founded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as “America’s first true theatrical collective”. In 1951 he became director of the non-profit Actors Studio. In 1969, he became Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute.
Lee Strasberg was born in Budanov, Austria, on November 17, 1901. His father was a Jewish cantor and his mother, who came from a long line of rabbis, was the daughter of a prominent rabbi. The family emigrated to New York’s Lower East Side in 1909. Strasberg attended Seward Park High School and City College of New York for one year before dropping out to pursue acting.
Strasberg made his acting debut with the Provincetown Players at the Wharf Theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1919, while on summer vacation from high school. In 1920 he joined the Group Theater in New York City, which was headed by Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford. The literary manager of the Group Theater was Cheryl Crawford’s brother Robert E. Sherwood, who later became an important American playwright. Among the actors in the company were Stella Adler, Clifford Odets, Franchot Tone and Morris Carnovsky. During this time he also appeared on Broadway in The Scene (1929), Awake and Sing! (1935) and Paradise Lost (1935). In 1931 Strasberg played a role in the original Group Theater production of The House of Connelly starring Paul Muni and directed by Lee Stras