Download or read book Stella Mother of Modern Acting written by Sheana Ochoa and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Applause Books). Arthur Miller decided to become a playwright after seeing her perform with the Group Theater. Marlon Brando attributed his acting to her genius as a teacher. Theater critic Robert Brustein calls her the greatest acting teacher in America. At the turn of the 20th century by which time acting had hardly evolved since classical Greece Stella Adler became a child star of the Yiddish stage in New York, where she was being groomed to refine acting craft and eventually help pioneer its modern gold standard: method acting. Stella's emphasis on experiencing a role through the actions in the given circumstances of the work directs actors toward a deep sociological understanding of the imagined characters: their social class, geographic upbringing, biography, which enlarges the actor's creative choices. Always "onstage," Stella's flamboyant personality disguised a deep sense of not belonging. Her unrealized dream of becoming a movie star chafed against an unflagging commitment to the transformative power of art. From her Depression-era plays with the Group Theatre to freedom fighting during WWII, Stella used her notoriety as a tool for change. For this book, Sheana Ochoa worked alongside Irene Gilbert, Stella's friend of 30 years, who provided Ochoa with a trove of Stella's personal and pedagogical materials, and Ochoa interviewed Stella's entire living family, including her daughter Ellen; her colleagues and friends, from Arthur Miller to Karl Malden; and her students from Robert De Niro to Mark Ruffalo. Unearthing countless unpublished letters and interviews, private audio recordings, Stella's extensive FBI file, class videos and private audio recordings, Ochoa's biography introduces one of the most under recognized, yet most influential luminaries of the 20th century.
Download or read book The Method written by Isaac Butler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Nonfiction NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER, TIME MAGAZINE, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, VOX, SALON, LIT HUB, AND VANITY FAIR “Entertaining and illuminating.”--The New Yorker * “Compulsively readable.”--New York Times * “Delicious, humane, probing.”--Vulture * “The best and most important book about acting I've ever read.”--Nathan Lane The critically acclaimed cultural history of Method acting-an ebullient account of creative discovery and the birth of classic Hollywood. On stage and screen, we know a great performance when we see it. But how do actors draw from their bodies and minds to turn their selves into art? What is the craft of being an authentic fake? More than a century ago, amid tsarist Russia's crushing repression, one of the most talented actors ever, Konstantin Stanislavski, asked these very questions, reached deep into himself, and emerged with an answer. How his “system” remade itself into the Method and forever transformed American theater and film is an unlikely saga that has never before been fully told. Now, critic and theater director Isaac Butler chronicles the history of the Method in a narrative that transports readers from Moscow to New York to Los Angeles, from The Seagull to A Streetcar Named Desire to Raging Bull. He traces how a cohort of American mavericks--including Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and the storied Group Theatre--refashioned Stanislavski's ideas for a Depression-plagued nation that had yet to find its place as an artistic powerhouse. The Group's feuds and rivalries would, in turn, shape generations of actors who enabled Hollywood to become the global dream-factory it is today. Some of these performers the Method would uplift; others, it would destroy. Long after its midcentury heyday, the Method lives on as one of the most influential--and misunderstood--ideas in American culture. Studded with marquee names--from Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and Elia Kazan, to James Baldwin, Ellen Burstyn, and Dustin Hoffman--The Method is a spirited history of ideas and a must-read for any fan of Broadway or American film.
Download or read book The Art of Acting written by and published by . This book was released on 1863 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Life and Acting written by Jack Garfein and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jack Garfein's book is a touching reminder of our early attempts at creating theater without artifice. It is good to know that he is still working hard at it."---Ben Gazzara --
Download or read book Strasberg at the Actors Studio written by Lee Strasberg and published by Theatre Communications Grou. This book was released on 1991 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transcriptions of actual tuition sessions by the originator of Method Acting, tutor to such talents as Paul Newman, Al Pacino, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Dustin Hoffman.
Download or read book Brando Songs My Mother Taught Me written by Marlon Brando and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2011-01-26 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is Marlon Brando’s own story, and his reason for telling it is best revealed in his own words: “I have always considered my life a private affair and the business of no one beyond my family and those I love. Except for moral and political issues that aroused in me a desire to speak out, I have done my utmost throughout my life, for the sake of my children and myself, to remain silent. . . . But now, in my seventieth year, I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.” To date there have been over a dozen books written about Marlon Brando, and almost all of them have been inaccurate, based on hearsay, sensationalist or prurient in tone. Now, at last, fifty years after his first appearance onstage in New York City, the actor has told his life story, with the help of Robert Lindsey. The result is an extraordinary book, at once funny, moving, absorbing, ribald, angry, self-deprecating and completely frank account of the career, both on-screen and off, of the greatest actor of our time. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a Brando film will relish this book. Please note: this edition does not include photos.
Download or read book The Contender written by William J. Mann and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 811 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Entertainment Weekly's BIG FALL BOOKS PREVIEW Selection Best Book of 2019 -- Publisher's Weekly Based on new and revelatory material from Brando’s own private archives, an award-winning film biographer presents a deeply-textured, ambitious, and definitive portrait of the greatest movie actor of the twentieth century, the elusive Marlon Brando, bringing his extraordinarily complex life into view as never before. The most influential movie actor of his era, Marlon Brando changed the way other actors perceived their craft. His approach was natural, honest, and deeply personal, resulting in performances—most notably in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront—that are without parallel. Brando was heralded as the American Hamlet—the Yank who surpassed British stage royalty Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson as the standard of greatness in the mid-twentieth century. Brando’s impact on American culture matches his professional significance; he both challenged and codified our ideas of masculinity and sexuality. Brando was also one of the first stars to use his fame as a platform to address social, political, and moral issues, courageously calling out America’s deeply rooted racism. William Mann’s brilliant biography of the Hollywood legend illuminates this culture icon for a new age. Mann astutely argues that Brando was not only a great actor but also a cultural soothsayer, a Cassandra warning us about the challenges to come. Brando’s admonitions against the monetization of nearly every aspect of the culture were prescient. His public protests against racial segregation and discrimination at the height of the Civil Rights movement—getting himself arrested at least once—were criticized as being needlessly provocative. Yet those actions of fifty years ago have become a model many actors follow today. Psychologically astute and masterfully researched, based on new and revelatory material, The Contender explores the star and the man in full, including the childhood traumas that reverberated through his professional and personal life. It is a dazzling biography of our nation’s greatest actor that is sure to become an instant classic. The Contender includes sixteen pages of photographs.
Download or read book The Moscow Art Theatre written by Nick Worrall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-08-29 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unprecedented in its comprehensiveness, The Moscow Art Theatre fills a large gap in our knowledge of Stanislavsky and his theatre. Worrall focuses in particular detail on four of The Moscow Art Theatre's best-known productions: * Tolstoy's Tsar Fedor Ioannovich * Gorky's The Lower Depths * Chekov's The Cherry Orchard * Turgenev's A Month in the Country
Download or read book Stella Adler on America s Master Playwrights written by Stella Adler and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her long-awaited book, the legendary acting teacher Stella Adler gives us her extraordinary insights into the work of Henrik Ibsen (“The creation of the modern theater took a genius like Ibsen . . . Miller and Odets, Inge and O’Neill, Williams and Shaw, swallowed the whole of him”), August Strindberg (“He understood and predicted the forces that would break in our lives”), and Anton Chekhov (“Chekhov doesn’t want a play, he wants what happened in life. In life, people don’t usually kill each other. They talk”). Through the plays of these masters, Adler discusses the arts of playwriting and script interpretation (“There are two aspects of the theater. One belongs to the author and the other to the actor. The actor thinks it all belongs to the author . . . The curtain goes up and all he knows are the lines . . . It is not enough . . . Script interpretation is your profession”). She looks into aspects of society and class, and into our cultural past, as well as the evolution of the modern spirit (“The actor learns from Ibsen what is modern in the modern theater. There are no villains, no heroes. Ibsen understands, more than anything, there is more than one truth”). Stella Adler—daughter of Jacob Adler, who was universally acknowledged to be the greatest actor of the Yiddish theater, and herself a disciple of Stanislavsky—examines the role of the actor and brings to life the plays from which all modern theater derives: Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder, An Enemy of the People, and A Doll’s House; Strindberg’s Miss Julie and The Father; Chekhov’s The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, and Three Sisters (“Masha is the sister who is the mystery. You cannot reach her. You cannot reach the artist. There is no logical way. Keep her in a special pocket of feelings that are complex and different”). Adler discusses the ideas behind these plays and explores the world of the playwrights and the history—both familial and cultural—that informed their work. She illumines not only the dramatic essence of each play but its subtext as well, continually asking questions that deepen one’s understanding of the work and of the human spirit. Adler’s book, brilliantly edited by Barry Paris, puts her famous lectures into print for the first time.
Download or read book The Fervent Years written by Harold Clurman and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 1983-03-22 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Group Theatre was perhaps the most significant experiment in the history of American theater. Producing plays that reflected topical issues of the decade and giving a creative chance to actors, directors, and playwrights who were either fed up with or shut out of commercial theater, the "Group" remains a permanent influence on American drama despite its brief ten-year life. It was here that method acting, native realism, and political language had their tryouts in front of audiences who anticipated--indeed demanded--a departure from the Broadway "show-biz" tradition. In this now classic account, Harold Clurman, founder of the Group Theatre and a dynamic force as producer-director-critic for fifty years, here re-creates history he helped make with Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan, Irwin Shaw, Clifford Odets, Cheryl Crawford, Morris Carnovsky, and William Saroyan. Stella Adler contributed a new introduction to this edition which remembers Clurman, the thirties, and the heady atmosphere of a tumultuous decade.
Download or read book Acting Class written by Nick Drnaso and published by Drawn & Quarterly. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Sabrina, Nick Drnaso’s Acting Class creates a tapestry of disconnect, distrust, and manipulation. Ten strangers are brought together under the tutelage of John Smith, a mysterious and morally questionable leader. The group of social misfits and restless searchers have one thing in common: they are out of step with their surroundings and desperate for change. A husband and wife, four years into their marriage and simmering in boredom. A single mother, her young son showing disturbing signs of mental instability. A peculiar woman with few if any friends and only her menial job keeping her grounded. A figure model, comfortable in his body and ready for a creative challenge. A worried grandmother and her adult granddaughter; a hulking laborer and gym nut; a physical therapist; an ex-con. With thrumming unease, the class sinks deeper into their lessons as the process demands increasing devotion. When the line between real life and imagination begins to blur, the group’s deepest fears and desires are laid bare. Exploring the tension between who we are and how we present, Drnaso cracks open his characters’ masks and takes us through an unsettling American journey.
Download or read book Issues in Feminist Film Criticism written by Patricia Erens and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This anthology makes it abundantly clear that feminist film criticism is flourishing and has developed dramatically since its inception in the early 1970s." —Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Erens brings together a wide variety of writings and methodologies by U.S. and British feminist film scholars. The twenty-seven essays represent some of the most influential work on Hollywood film, women's cinema, and documentary filmmaking to appear during the past decade and beyond. Contributors include Lucie Arbuthnot, Linda Artel, Pam Cook, Teresa de Lauretis, Mary Ann Doane, Elizabeth Ellsworth, Lucy Fischer, Jane Gaines, Mary C. Gentile, Bette Gordon, Florence Jacobowitz, Claire Johnston, E. Ann Kaplan, Annette Kuhn, Julia Lesage, Judith Mayne, Sonya Michel, Tania Modleski, Laura Mulvey, B. Ruby Rich, Gail Seneca, Kaja Silverman, Lori Spring, Jackie Stacey, Maureen Turim, Diane Waldman, Susan Wengraf, Linda Williams, and Robin Wood.
Download or read book Acting written by Terry Schreiber and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-03-07 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honed by the author's 35 years of teaching, this advanced book offers different warm-up exercises concentrating on the actor's sense of smell, sound, sight, and touch; sensory tools for conveying the climate and environment of the text; tips for suggesting a character's physical conditions; and much more. Individual exercises will help actors to free the voice and body, create a character, find the action and condition of scenes, and explore the subconscious for effective emotional recall. Readers will also find meticulous guidelines for best using rehearsal time and preparing for in-class scene work. The foreword is written by two-time Academy Award nominee Edward Norton. Those who act, direct, or teach will not want to miss the acting lessons that have made T. Schreiber Studio a premier actor training program.
Download or read book Acting with Adler written by Joanna Rotte and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stella Adler towers high among the memorable acting teachers in American theatre. Her methods of training, her principles of acting and character interpretation, and her analyses of the seminal plays of the modern theatre comprise a legacy for everyone who followed her. Acting with Adler looks at that legacy through the particular immediacy and authenticity of her own spoken words. Over three years in the 1970s, author Joanna Rotté worked under the direction of Adler as a student and actor, all the while taking copious notes that form the heart of this book. Rotté’s recounting of her time with Adler reveals a teacher speaking about her principles in a tough-minded, demanding manner, inspired by her overriding conviction that an actor “becomes bigger through working.” This new edition of Rotté’s acclaimed text includes an entirely new foreword from Isaac Butler, author of The Method; a preface that places Adler more fully in her historical context; and an afterword that reflects on Adler’s philosophical and practical contributions, considering what her teachings have to offer performers working today.
Download or read book The Lucid Body written by Fay Simpson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Actors! Engage your mind and your body in order to develop your characters fully. The Lucid Body technique breaks up stagnant movement patterns and expands your emotional and physical range. Through energy analysis, this program shows how to use physical training to create characters from all walks of life—however cruel, desolate, or neurotic those characters may be. Rooted in the exploration of the seven chakra energy centers, The Lucid Body reveals how each body holds the possibility of every human condition. Learn how to analyze the character, hear the inner body, dissect the self into layers of consciousness, and more.
Download or read book Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting written by Jonathan Pitches and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-09-21 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Russian tradition is a major area of theatre studies Uses a range of historical and archival material, including previously unpublished material from the Michael Chekov archives International market - UK, America. Potential interest in Russia and France
Download or read book Irving Thalberg written by Mark A. Vieira and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-11-05 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood in the 1920s sparkled with talent, confidence, and opportunity. Enter Irving Thalberg of Brooklyn, who survived childhood illness to run Universal Pictures at twenty; co-found Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at twenty-four; and make stars of Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow. Known as Hollywood's "Boy Wonder," Thalberg created classics such as Ben-Hur, Tarzan the Ape Man, Grand Hotel, Freaks, Mutiny on the Bounty, and The Good Earth, but died tragically at thirty-seven. His place in the pantheon should have been assured, yet his films were not reissued for thirty years, spurring critics to question his legend and diminish his achievements. In this definitive biography, illustrated with rare photographs, Mark A. Vieira sets the record straight, using unpublished production files, financial records, and correspondence to confirm the genius of Thalberg's methods. In addition, this is the first Thalberg biography to utilize both his recorded conversations and the unpublished memoirs of his wife, Norma Shearer. Irving Thalberg is a compelling narrative of power and idealism, revealing for the first time the human being behind the legend.
