About this item
Highlights
- Take a Master Class from the Woman Who Taught America's Greatest Actors"Acting is stubborn work, necessitating constant attention and a rigorous schedule.
- Author(s): Stella Adler
- 156 Pages
- Performing Arts, Acting & Auditioning
Description
About the Book
In The Technique of Acting Stella Adler imparts knowledge gained over decades on the stage and years of training with such greats as Stanislavski. This book presents invaluable training and technique for anyone aspiring to the stage.
Book Synopsis
Take a Master Class from the Woman Who Taught America's Greatest Actors"Acting is stubborn work, necessitating constant attention and a rigorous schedule. It is not for geniuses. It is for people who work step-by-step. While there is no recipe for acting, it does follow a sequence of principles. The ideas and exercises that follow can work for you and give you the courage to fight for your development and craft. . . . More than anything, it is an actor's job to penetrate the playwright's creations-the subtleties and mysteries that the playwright's ideas contain."
-from Stella Adler's introduction to The Technique of Acting.
As a seminal American acting teacher of the 20th century, Stella Adler shaped the work of such acclaimed actors as Marlon Brando, Selma Hayek, Harvey Keitel, Melanie Griffith, Robert DeNiro, Benicio Del Toro, and Warren Beatty, as well as choreographers Alvin Ailey and Jerome Robbins, among others. As Brando states in his foreword, "Ms Adler presents us with an analysis of the technique of acting that is incisive, intelligent, and long overdue."
The Technique of Acting is an introduction to Adler's unique approach to acting, addressing such key elements as imagination, circumstances, actions, working with text, and developing a character, and is replete with examples and exercises that concretely build skills. The book finishes with her compelling narrative of how she came to study intensively with Konstantin Stanislavski.
If you love theater and love acting, this work will provide you with invaluable insight and education to both.
This book is also available from Echo Point Books as a hardcover (ISBN 1648374417).
Review Quotes
"Studying with Stella Adler at 18 years old cracked open my mind, heart & soul. It was initially intimidating; the concept of the responsibility of being an actor. But as I matured, I came to understand that she was teaching us to lift the expression of the Human experience to a place that could inspire, heal, provoke & bring love & understanding to all who witnessed the work, and beyond. She has continued to teach me every day of my life to aspire to be not only a great artist, but a significant citizen of the world. This book is one of my touchstones."-Donna Murphy
"The incomparable Stella Adler changed my life, and in this book the reader will see how her technique, at once original and brilliant, serves to bring her vividly to life: her size, her passion, her exquisite understanding of human nature and, most importantly, her unparalleled gift as a teacher."-Kate Mulgrew
"Adler has grown up with the American century and has figured . . . prominently in its theater . . . . The force she exerts is that of elevation. She reminds the actor that he's not just doing a scene study, but that he (or she) embodies a specific person inhabiting a specific place and time." -Lawrence Christon, Los Angeles Times
"Stella Adler . . . is the queen of acting theory." -Samuel G. Freedman, The New York Times
"Stella Adler not only teaches acting, she teaches an artist's approach to the craft, a cultural attitude to theatre and, by extension, a broad-horizoned attitude and approach to every craft and all art . . . . It is both a delight and a treasure, finally, to have a book based on her classes" -Peter Bogdanovich
"Budding thespians who do not have the opportunity to attend one of Ms. Adler's schools... can...avail themselves of her genius on paper. Highly recommended."-The Coast Book Review Service
"Ms Adler presents us with an analysis of the technique of acting that is incisive, intelligent, and long overdue." -Marlon Brando