<p>^ That’s a good one.<br>
A little of both. We had lectures in acting history, theory and styles at school and a good bit of this was actually discussed at my high school in which we were sometimes assigned research papers on various topics of interest that came up during discussions - often because the teachers themselves wanted to know. Plus I was never shy about asking about the end goals of what I was being taught, where it came from and how various aspects connected to others, etc. if I couldn’t just tell where they were headed from having read a lot of the “technique” books by the big name teachers. There have also been times since that I’ve read or heard something and been like, “OH! THAT’S what he was up to!” Sometimes little epiphanies happen in actual usage, too.</p>
<p>I also got curious about all the competing Group Theater teacher rhetoric and did a lot of reading to try to get to the bottom of all the hubbub since they all had great actors who’d been their students. What I found was that a good bit of it seemed to have little to do with actual pedagogy, but was very personal. They were not only competing for students, but there was a lot of history there and they really kind of hated each other. Like Stella called for a moment of silence in her class the day Lee Strasberg died and said it would be a hundred years before the art of acting recovered from him. I think the same could be said for all of them not so much because of flaws in their teachings, but moreso from all the confusion they’ve caused amongst young actors through their destructive rhetoric.
“Toolbox” means a variety of approaches are employed with the student expected to keep, use and add to the parts that work for them as opposed to the school teaching one specific technique to which everyone is supposed to adhere. Like Juilliard is decidedly “toolbox” and Annabelera gave a good explanation as to how things are done there …
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<p>It can also mean that what they teach is a specific technique derived from elements taken from several others. I don’t think you can make generalizations as to what it will look like from school to school. It just depends on what the various faculty members have found useful to teach. Then, you can’t make too much of a blanket statement about a single technique being taught, either. For instance William Esper who set up the Rutgers program and ran it for years said very clearly in The Actor’s Art and Craft that he teaches his technique in hopes that it will lead his students to discover their own which is the way it should be imho. </p>
<p>NJTM,<br>
Face it. You’ve got the bug, lady. Take an acting class! 
Your son probably knows a lot of this, too. I know a BU grad who can talk your ear off about this stuff. Then, maybe she’s just a geek like me. Or should I say “student of the game” which is often profferred as a compliment to professional athletes? ;)</p>