Stanislavski's Method

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Konstantin Stanislavski, born as Konstantin Sergeievich Alexeiev was one of Russia’s great actor/directors, born in 1863. Through theatre work his most famous aspect was his great struggle to find the perfect system approach towards acting. It was his great passion for the arts and in particular theatre that inspired him to strive to refine and remake his system until he died in 1938. [1] Stanislavski was born into a rich family which ran a gold and silver processing factory designed mainly for military uniforms. As a privileged member of society Stanislavski was introduced to the arts at an early age with his family even owning their own home theatre. [2] However Stanislavski was encouraged to enter the family business and not pursue a career in theatre, which caused him to use Stanislavski as his stage name in order to keep his interest in theatre secret from his family. Method acting is a systematic approach towards acting using a set of points in order to guide an actor in how they act and behave on stage. Stanislavski’s development of the world’s first method acting system is what led him to be remembered as a pioneer of its kind by modern theatre. As a founder of the Moscow Arts Theatre Stanislavski further developed this method acting system in an environment which encouraged him to be creative, much different from the life he led growing up. He developed his approach through watching, directing and acting himself. It was through this vast experience that Stanislavski gained the knowledge and indeed need, to form a systematic approach to acting. As he progressed as a performer and director and critic Stanislavski further refined his system of acting. This makes it the ever more tragic that great parts of his works were lost through mistranslation and cutting and changing by American copyrighter Elizabeth Hapgood. Stanislavski is now remembered best

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