Specific method approaches in the acting colleges?

[fishbowlfreshman]

<p>^ True dat. Plus you have to understand that Stanislavski’s system was created as a compliment to the presentational styles prevalent in his day. Not as a total replacement like the old Group Theater teachers who misunderstood it and essentially threw the baby out with the bathwater would have had it. We’re really just now getting past all that and it’s one area in which academia is typically lagging a bit behind although most of the good schools now address at least some of it in physical theatre classes. Most commonly Suzuki, Viewpoints, Lecoq, Grotwoski, Laban, Malgrem and Meyerhold. Not to mention Chekhov who actually was connected directly to Stanislavski although with a great deal of divergence. And then you have some other modern approaches to just playing psychological realism which is the goal of Stanislavski’s system like Harold Guskin’s which is very much divorced from it as well as Charles Conrad’s [“Choiceless</a> Awareness.”](<a href=“http://www.backstage.com/advice-for-actors/acting-teachers/something-to-not-think-about]"Choiceless”>http://www.backstage.com/advice-for-actors/acting-teachers/something-to-not-think-about)</p>

<p>Now just for fun’s sake since I can’t help myself, here’s a blurb from one of the top LA “finishing” teachers whose approach is similar to Harold Guskin’ s although it’s geared primarily for tv and film work … </p>

<p>

Lesly’s Non-Method</p>

<p>WARNING!!!</p>

<p>Lesly Kahn & Company is not a conservatory program promoting love and passion for the craft of being unemployed!!!</p>

<p>If you want to be unemployed, please [click</a> here.](<a href=“File for Unemployment – Overview”>File for Unemployment – Overview)</p>

<p>Most acting schools teach one of several derivatives of Method Acting (like Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, etc.). For those of you unfamiliar with it, Method is an acting technique originated by Constantin Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia in the late 1800’s to work on fabulous plays by the likes of Anton Chekhov. (Thirty or so years later it was reconceived to elucidate more great plays by guys like Clifford Odets at The Group Theater.) It’s an incredible thing, but it’s also old. I mean it predates like indoor plumbing, okay? But more importantly – it was created for the stage. Before film and television. Which is, I’m pretty sure, not what you quit college/the family business, and/or ****ed off your parents/dumped your high school sweetheart to do.</p>

<p>So, because (a) you can pick up a latte and a method class on pretty much any street corner, and (b) we want you to get jobs that don’t involve phone sales or phone sex, we don’t teach that stuff. We certainly admire the work, but we don’t find it particularly helpful to actors attempting to succeed in today’s market. In fact, we think it kinda gets in the way. I mean, they didn’t have hundred million dollar blockbusters back in the 19th century.</p>

<p>Nobody hadda master ten pages of physical comedy for TWO AND A HALF MEN overnight during the Great Depression. Aaron Sorkin and David E. Kelley hadn’t even been born yet, let alone written three page, single-spaced summations in legalese that you hadda learn. Overnight. If you were lucky.</p>

<pre><code> The Method.
Is not helping you.
Get.
A job.
</code></pre>

<p>And we’re pretty sure that’s not why you schlepped all the way across the country to live in a one room rat-trap with three strangers, your ex-girlfriend’s crazy cousin and somebody’s feral cat. We gotta getcha a job, dude. Like right now.</p>

<p>Now if you’re gonna do a play, that’s a different story. If you’re gonna have a wonderful director and props and a stage manager and fellow actors and rehearsal shoes, then why not improvise, try things, throw stuff up in the air and see what sticks? Hell, you’ve got four weeks to get it together, right? Or if you’ve booked the job and will be hanging out on location for the better part of the year, you’d better start writing that 75 page character analysis of what your character’s mother’s mother had for breakfast two weeks ago Tuesday. But again, that’s not what you’re here for, is it?</p>

<p>You’re here to:
* get an audition today and be able to book it tomorrow,
* instantly figure out what the writer wrote and make it your own,
* immediately translate Casting Director-speak into Actor-ese and execute the requested adjustments,
* not only survive the ups and downs of life as an actor, but prevail and conquer,
* blissfully live in the not-knowing – both in your acting and in your life, and
* be an artist thriving in the world of commerce.</p>

<p>So, at LK&Co. you will rarely hear about actions, objectives, substitution or sense memory. There will be no personal objects, no repetition, no private moments, no relaxation, no eighteen page scenes over six months from CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. (Not that we don’t love Tennessee Williams. We do. Just not the night before your audition for that fabulous independent film.)</p>

<p>We do have “the quick fix,” but know that “quick” is a relative term. You’re probably gonna learn everything you need to know within the first ten minutes you spend with Lesly.
But then? Ya’ gotta do it.</p>

<p>[Lesly</a> Kahn & Co. | Los Angeles Acting Lesly’s Non-Method | Hollywood Acting Lesly’s Non-Method](<a href=“http://www.leslykahn.com/lesly-kahn-non-method.php]Lesly”>http://www.leslykahn.com/lesly-kahn-non-method.php)

But before any kids get any rebellious ideas about what you’ll learn in college, she expects her new students to already have some kind of Stanislavski based training before you go to her. Hell, she has a BFA from Tisch, an MFA from Yale and basically put the Marymount Manhattan BFA on the map during her time teaching there.</p>