Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters that embodied an everyman image.
Method acting, known as The Method, is a range of rehearsal techniques, as formulated by a number of different theatre practitioners, that seeks to encourage sincere and expressive performances through identifying with, understanding, and experiencing a character's inner motivation and emotions. These techniques are built on Stanislavski's system, developed by the Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavski and captured in his books An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, and Creating a Role.
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack is known for directing commercially and critically acclaimed studio films. Over his forty year career he received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and six BAFTA Awards.
Stanislavski's system is a systematic approach to training actors that the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski developed in the first half of the twentieth century. His system cultivates what he calls the "art of experiencing". It mobilises the actor's conscious thought and will in order to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and subconscious behaviour—sympathetically and indirectly. In rehearsal, the actor searches for inner motives to justify action and the definition of what the character seeks to achieve at any given moment.
Lee Strasberg was an American theatre director, actor and acting teacher. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective". In 1951, he became director of the nonprofit Actors Studio in New York City, considered "the nation's most prestigious acting school," and, in 1966, was involved in the creation of Actors Studio West in Los Angeles.
Sanford Meisner was an American actor and acting teacher who developed an approach to acting instruction that is now known as the Meisner technique. While Meisner was exposed to method acting at the Group Theatre, his approach differed markedly in that he completely abandoned the use of affective memory, a distinct characteristic of method acting. Meisner maintained an emphasis on "the reality of doing", which was the foundation of his approach.
Stella Adler was an American actress and acting teacher.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov, known as Michael Chekhov, was a Russian-American actor, director, author, and theatre practitioner. He was a nephew of the playwright Anton Chekhov and a student of Konstantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski referred to him as his most brilliant student.
The Meisner technique is an approach to acting developed by American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner.
Robert Lewis was an American actor, director, teacher, author and founder of the influential Actors Studio in New York in 1947.
Brad Stephen "Taylor" Negron was an American actor, comedian, writer and artist. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Albert in Punchline (1988) and as Milo in the 1991 action comedy The Last Boy Scout.
William Frank Jones, stage name Christopher Jones, was an American stage, movie, and television actor.
Affective memory was an early element of Stanislavski's 'system' and a central part of method acting. Affective memory requires actors to call on the memory of details from a similar situation and import those feelings to those of their characters. Stanislavski believed actors needed to take emotion and personality to the stage and call upon it when playing their character. He also explored the use of objectives, actioning, and empathizing with the character.
The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute is an acting school founded in 1969 by actor, director, and acting teacher Lee Strasberg. The Institute is located in Union Square on East 15th Street, also known as Lee Strasberg Way, in New York, New York. The school has a secondary campus located in Los Angeles, California.
True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor by David Mamet is a 1997 instructional book on acting, and the life and habits of the successful actor. In it, Mamet outlines his thoughts on acting, and gives advice for those practicing the craft and for aspiring practitioners.
Ion Cojar was a Romanian acting teacher, researcher, and theatre director. He is the founder of a unique method that revolutionised the Romanian school of acting.
Ric Young is a Malaysian-born British character actor. He is best known for his role as Dr. Zhang Lee in the TV series Alias (2001–04) and as the henchman Kao Kan in the Steven Spielberg film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Alvina Krause was an American drama teacher at Northwestern University, theatrical entrepreneur, "maker of stars", and director. Her students called her AK. Her first name is pronounced Al-vine-na
Sonia Moore was a Russian Empire-born American actress, writer and acting teacher. She is known for simplifying Stanislavski's system of acting devised by Konstantin Stanislavski. Moore was a student of Yevgeny Vakhtangov, and later became an acting teacher.
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