Stanislavski or stanislavsky

This compact, well-illustrated and clearly written book offers an essential guide to the complex and contradictory nature of this master of theatre.

Routledge Performance Practitioners are a series of introductory guides to key theatre-makers. These compact, well-illustrated and clearly written books will unravel the contribution of modern theatre's most charismatic innovators.

This is the first book to combine:

- an overview of Stanislavsky's life history

- an assessment of his widely read text, An Actor Prepares

- detailed commentary of the key 1998 production of The Seagull

- an indispensable set of practical exercises for actors, teachers and directors.

As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today's student.

Acting is a strange thing to do, because all you are really doing is “being”, and shouldn’t “being” be easy? Well, no, it can be the hardest thing to do, (well, for me at least! Maybe you’d get a different answer from Meryl Streep or Robert De Niro). That’s where books, resources, and outside expertise comes in. ‘An Actor Prepares’ is one of the ground-breaking texts by Constantin Stanislavski, a Russian actor and theatre practitioner responsible for the naturalistic “method” acting technique.

‘An Actor Prepares’ takes an interesting form. It’s written like a fictional story, from the perspective of a young actor undergoing acting training. The “character” Stanislavski takes is the director, Tortsov. I like this format because it means the reader can place the relevance of each idea and theory into practical, attainable narratives that we can attribute to our own lives. Just as these students are learning through rehearsal, I too, am learning through rehearsal. When Tortsov rambles off a long yet poignant and eye-opening theory, the “characters” in the book process

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