"Life beats down and crushes our souls and theatre reminds us that we have one."
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner, is known as “theatre’s best kept secret” He was an American born actor and a founding member of the Group Theatre. He was the head of the acting program at the Neighborhood Playhouse from 1935 on where he developed his unorthodox acting technique. The Meisner technique became and still remains the most straightforward and exciting approach to acting. His book, “On Acting” is considered to be one of the most important and complete guides to becoming an actor ever written.
Some of the greatest actors of the 20th century have studied Meisner’s technique including James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Gregory Peck, Steve McQueen, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Voight, Sydney Pollack, Jim Jarrett, Tony Randall, Eli Wallach, Tyne Daly and Joanne Woodward. Actors who continue to study Meisner today include Jeff Goldblum, Dylan McDermott, James Gandolfini, Amanda Seyfried, Stephen Colbert, James Franco, Naomi Watts, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Kurt Sutter.
The technique is based on Meisner’s “reality of doing” designed to get your attention off yourself so you are free to live moment to moment and fully explore your unique impulses and instincts. The repetition exercise teaches you to listen and respond with truthful spontaneous behavior. A Meisner trained actor takes risks and lives in the unknown without planning how they will react. That’s an actor who is compelling to watch.
As you advance with the repetition exercise it becomes more complex and different elements are added to help you further access your emotional life. Scene work gives you the practical experience you need to use the technique outside the classroom. Students learn to memorize by rote and not make any decisions about how they will deliver lines. When the scene is worked for the first time the characters come to life out of the moment without trying to make something happen. The scene is driven by a spontaneous subtext that isn’t found in the script but lies in the actor’s behavior. That is what Sanford Meisner called acting, “living and behaving truthfully under given imaginary circumstances”.
Some of the greatest actors of the 20th century have studied Meisner’s technique including James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Gregory Peck, Steve McQueen, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Voight, Sydney Pollack, Jim Jarrett, Tony Randall, Eli Wallach, Tyne Daly and Joanne Woodward. Actors who continue to study Meisner today include Jeff Goldblum, Dylan McDermott, James Gandolfini, Amanda Seyfried, Stephen Colbert, James Franco, Naomi Watts, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Kurt Sutter.
The technique is based on Meisner’s “reality of doing” designed to get your attention off yourself so you are free to live moment to moment and fully explore your unique impulses and instincts. The repetition exercise teaches you to listen and respond with truthful spontaneous behavior. A Meisner trained actor takes risks and lives in the unknown without planning how they will react. That’s an actor who is compelling to watch.
As you advance with the repetition exercise it becomes more complex and different elements are added to help you further access your emotional life. Scene work gives you the practical experience you need to use the technique outside the classroom. Students learn to memorize by rote and not make any decisions about how they will deliver lines. When the scene is worked for the first time the characters come to life out of the moment without trying to make something happen. The scene is driven by a spontaneous subtext that isn’t found in the script but lies in the actor’s behavior. That is what Sanford Meisner called acting, “living and behaving truthfully under given imaginary circumstances”.
"An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words."
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner
