Lee Strasberg and the Method

Perhaps the most widely-known of the Americans who built upon and taught Stanislavski’s system is Lee Strasberg (1901-1982) - an Austro-Hungarian-American actor and teacher famous for the “Method” that he developed at the Group Theatre and then later at the Actors Studio in New York (although the term “method acting” generally refers to the use of Stanislavski’s system in America - especially in the work of Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sanford Meisner - “Method” with a capital M refers specifically to Strasberg’s approach).

Strasberg, along with future rival Stella Adler, was an early disciple of Richard Boleslavsky at the American Laboratory Theater - the forerunner of the Actors Studio, which Boleslavsky co-founded with fellow Moscow Art Theatre alum Maria Ouspenskaya when they emigrated to New York in 1923. Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaya had studied with Stanislavski during his “Emotional Memory” period, and this method had a huge effect on the young Strasberg.

He went on from ALT to found the Group Theatre with two prominent directors of the day in 1931. The Group is considered the first American acting company to put Stanislavski’s system into practice - and Strasberg led the way. The Group attracted many of the brightest young actors, directors, and playwrights of the day - among them Elia Kazan and Clifford Odets, along with Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner (who would later break away from Strasberg’s Method to develop teaching methods of their own based on Stanislavski’s system).

It was primarily the disagreement between Strasberg and Adler over the proper way to teach Stanislavski’s system that led to Strasberg’s departure from the Group in 1935, and ultimately to its break-up in 1940. Adler (who had taken private lessons with Stanislavski in Paris) advocated a practice of “living in the moment,” using your partner and a belief in the imagined circumstances to create an emotional result; while Strasberg maintained a more dogmatic use of Stanislavski’s Emotional Memory method, employing techniques like substitution - that is, the practice of drawing on personal experiences and memories to produce a believable emotional result. Strasberg referred to this process as Sense Memory, and it is the basis of his Method. His version of the technique involves the recall of the physical sensations surrounding personal emotional events (rather than the emotions themselves) as stimuli for reproducing those emotions onstage.

It is perhaps telling that when former Group members Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, and Robert Lewis founded the Actors Studio in 1947 (picking up where ALT had left off), they did not initially ask Strasberg to teach there, opting instead to hire Meisner, Strasberg’s former pupil. Although this remained a spot of contention between Strasberg and Meisner for the rest of their careers, Strasberg did finally become the Studio’s Artistic Director in 1951, eventually turning it into a powerful institution renowned the world over for teaching his Method.

The Actors Studio, which continues teaching Strasberg’s Method to this day, is an exclusive organization for professional actors, directors, and playwrights with branches in New York and Los Angeles. Membership is by audition, open to all professional actors age 18 and above. The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, which also operates branches on both coasts, offers a two-year certificate program, as well as a variety of short courses, workshops, summer classes, and programs for teens on an assortment of performance, directing, and writing-oriented topics. Admission to these programs is open to all. The studio in New York also runs a program in conjunction with New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

The Actors Studio
http://www.theactorsstudio.org
432 West 44^th Street
New York, NY 10036
Phone: (212) 757-0870
Audition hotline: (212) 946-5768
Fax: (212) 757-7638

The Actors Studio West
http://www.theactorsstudio.org
8341 DeLongpre Avenue
West Hollywood, CA 90060-2601
Phone: (323) 654-7125
Fax: (323) 654-8266

The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute (New York)
http://www.strasberg.com
115 Lee Strasberg Way (East 15^th Street)
New York, NY 10003
Phone: (212) 533-5500
Fax: (212) 473-1727
E-mail: newyork@strasberg.com

The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute (Los Angeles)
http://www.strasberg.com
7936 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Phone: (323) 650-7777
Fax: (323) 650-7770
E-mail: losangeles@strasberg.com

Notable students of the Method:
Barbara Bain, Anne Bancroft, Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, Hayden Christensen, Jill Clayburgh, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Rebecca Gayheart, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Hopper, Harvey Keitel, Martin Landau, Brandon Lee, Marilyn Monroe, Ellen Muth, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Geraldine Page, Eva Marie Saint, Sissy Spacek, Kim Stanley, Rod Steiger, Meryl Streep, Rip Torn, Gene Wilder, Shelley Winters

Further reading:
Cole, Toby
Acting: A Handbook of the Stanislavski Method
(with introduction by Lee Strasberg)

Hull, S. Loraine
Strasberg’s Method as Taught by Lorrie Hull: A Practical Guide for Actors, Teachers, Directors

Strasberg, Lee
A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method

Note
The following are common misspellings of Lee Strasberg's name: Le, Lea, Leigh, Straysberg, Strassberg, Stassberg, Strassbarg, Strasbarg, Stressberg.