Konstantin Stanislavski
An Actor Prepares "An Actor Prepares" by Konstantin Stanislavski is the most famous acting training book ever to have been written and has inspired generations of actors and trainers. Presented in the established translation by Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood who worked alongside the author, Stanislavski's first volume remains as vital today as when it first appeared.
Written as a drama class, "An Actor Prepares" deals with the inward preparation an actor must undergo in order to explore a role to the full. Stanislavski writes with imagination, passion and inspiration, introducing his concepts of the 'magic if, units and objectives, emotion memory, the super-objective and many more now famous rehearsal aids for actors.
Konstantin Stanislavsky
An Actor's Work: A Student's Diary Stanislavski’s ‘system’ has dominated actor-training in the West since his writings were first translated into English in the 1920s and 30s. His systematic attempt to outline a psycho-physical technique for acting single-handedly revolutionized standards of acting in the theatre.
Until now, readers and students have had to contend with inaccurate, misleading and difficult-to-read English-language versions. Some of the mistranslations have resulted in profound distortions in the way his system has been interpreted and taught. At last, Jean Benedetti has succeeded in translating Stanislavski’s huge manual into a lively, fascinating and accurate text in English. He has remained faithful to the author's original intentions, putting the two books previously known as An Actor Prepares and Building A Character back together into one volume, and in a colloquial and readable style for today's actors.
The result is a major contribution to the theatre, and a service to one of the great innovators of the twentieth century.
Konstantin Stanislavsky
My Life in Art In his outstanding autobiography, Konstantin Stanislavsky reveals his own ideas and experience.
Written with the same warmth, liveliness and ability to re-create reality that made Stanislavski a great actor, his autobiography tells of his childhood in the world of Moscow's wealthy merchants, his successes and failures as an amateur actor, how he studied human beings, and developed what has come to be known as the "Stanislavski Method," how his group of dedicated amateurs became "perhaps the greatest acting group the world has ever known (Washington Post)," The Moscow Art Theatre.
Konstantin Stanislavsky
My Life in Art Konstantin Stanislavski was a Russian director who transformed theatre in the West with his contributions to the birth of Realist theatre and his unprecedented approach to teaching acting. He lived through extraordinary times and his unique contribution to the arts still endures in the twenty-first century. He established the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898 with, among other plays, the premiere of Chekhov's The Seagull. He also survived revolutions, lost his fortune, found wide fame in America, and lived in internal exile under Stalin's Soviet Union.
Before writing his classic manual on acting, Stanislavski began writing an autobiography that he hoped would both chronicle his rich and tumultuous life and serve as a justification of his aesthetic philosophy. But when the project grew to 'impossible' lengths, his publisher (Little, Brown) insisted on many cuts and changes to keep it to its deadline and to a manageable length. The result was a version published in English in 1924, which Stanislavski hated and completely revised for a Soviet edition that came out in 1926.
Now, for the first time, translator Jean Benedetti brings us Stanislavski's complete unabridged autobiography as the author himself wanted it – from the re-edited 1926 version. The text, in clear and lively English, is supplemented by a wealth of photos and illustrations, many previously unpublished.
