Stanislavski and the actor

by Jean Benedetti

Stanislavski and the Actor offers a clear, modern presentation of Konstantin Stanislavski's methods of actor training and rehearsal. It is based on the course Stanislavski designed and taught with a team of hand-picked assistants in the last three years of his life (1935-38) at the Opera-Dramatic Studio in Moscow. Jean Benedetti now reconstructs that course. Stanislavski and the Actor is the manual which Stanislavski never had time to write. Using notes made by Stanislavski's assistants, exercises and improvisations used in class, transcripts of Stanislavski's own master classes (translated here into English for the first time) and his knowledge of Stanislavski's earlier writings, Benedetti builds up a comprehensive description of the 'system' in contemporary language that is easy to understand by today's actors and teachers. He also shows that Stanislavski's revolutionary teachings about acting still have wide application now.