Sanford Meisner and the Meisner Technique

Sanford Meisner (1905-1997) was the third and final member of the great triumvirate who pioneered Stanislavski’s system in America (the other two being Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg). While each of these three developed a unique approach (often disagreeing strongly with each other), they are collectively known as the architects of method acting (although “Method” with a capital M refers specifically to Strasberg’s approach, the term “method acting” is generally used for the application of Stanislavski’s precepts by American teachers, particularly these three innovators).

Like Adler and Strasberg, Meisner began his career as an actor. As a teenager, he performed at a small theater in Manhattan’s Lower East Side under the direction of a precocious young man - Lee Strasberg. Strasberg remained a huge influence on the young Meisner, acting as a tutor and mentor. When Strasberg and two other directors founded the Group Theatre in 1931, Meisner was one of the twenty-eight actors chosen to form the company.

In 1934, fellow group member Stella Adler returned from a trip to Paris, where she had taken private lessons with Stanislavski himself. Her subsequent disagreement with Strasberg over the proper way to teach Stanislavski’s system was the genesis of the Group’s disintegration in 1940. At that time, Meisner went on to head the acting program at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse, where he would begin developing a teaching method of his own. The Meisner Technique, as it would come to be called, was of course influenced by Meisner’s work with the Group and his training with Strasberg - but it owed even more to the revelations Adler had brought back to America in 1934 concerning the use of the imagination.

Like many other members of the Group, Meisner had grown frustrated with Strasberg’s dogmatic insistence of the use of Emotional Memory - a technique which Stanislavski himself had all but abandoned years before, involving the practice of drawing on personal experiences and memories to produce believable emotional results. Following Adler’s lead, Meisner shifted his focus to the use of the imagination and a belief in the circumstances of the play. Like Adler, Meisner wanted his students to be “in the moment” onstage. Perhaps the crucial difference between the two techniques is that while Adler put a great deal of emphasis on script-work, Meisner focused primarily on physical actions and improvisation - “an ounce of behavior is worth more than a pound of words,” as he once said.

The primary goal of the Meisner Technique - in Meisner’s own famous words - is to get actors to “live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Rather than making a decision ahead of time about how to play an action or emotion, Meisner emphasized a more organic process - the performance of a simple action, for instance, around which emotion and subtext would grow. In one of Meisner’s best-known exercises - known as “Repetition” - for instance, one actor makes a spontaneous comment based on his or her partner’s improvised behavior. This comment is then repeated back and forth between the two actors until it changes on its own. The objective of this exercise was always to react truthfully to the situation at hand, and not simply to change for the sake of change. This principle of never doing or saying anything until something happens to make you do or say it is central to the Meisner Technique.

When the Actors Studio was formed in 1947 by former Group Theatre members Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, and Robert Lewis, Meisner was one of the first teachers hired to instruct its members (many of whom had already studied under Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse). Meisner’s former mentor, Lee Strasberg, was not initially invited to teach - and although he did finally become artistic director of the Studio in 1951, this remained a spot of contention between the two for the rest of their careers (especially after Strasberg publicly took credit for training several Studio members who had in fact studied under Meisner, and who were already successful film stars by the time Strasberg took over).

After leaving the Actors Studio, Meisner went on to found his own studio and theater - the Sanford Meisner Center for the Arts in Los Angeles. The Meisner Center offers a three-year professional certificate program with an optional fourth year master’s degree, as well as three levels of intensive classes lasting five weeks each. Occasionally, free one-day workshops are also offered.

Sanford Meisner Center for the Arts
http://www.themeisnercenter.com
5124 Lankershim Boulevard
North Hollywood, CA 91601
Phone: (818) 509-9651
Fax: (818) 753-4197
E-mail: info@themeisnercenter.com

Notable students of the Meisner Technique:
James Caan, Robert Duvall, Peter Falk, Bob Fosse, Jeff Goldblum, Diane Keaton, Grace Kelly, Sidney Lumet, David Mamet, Steve McQueen, Arthur Miller, Gregory Peck, Sidney Pollack, Maureen Stapleton, Jon Voigt, Eli Wallach

Further reading:
Meisner, Sanford with Dennis Longwell
Sanford Meisner on Acting

Silverberg, Larry
The Sanford Meisner Approach: An Actor’s Workbook

Silverberg, Larry
The Sanford Meisner Approach: Workbook II - Emotional Freedom

Silverberg, Larry
The Sanford Meisner Approach: Workbook III - Tackling the Text

Silverberg, Larry
The Sanford Meisner Approach: Workbook IV - Playing the Part

Note
The following are common misspellings of Sanford Meisner: Sanferd, Sonford, Sanfird, Stanford, Sandford, Sandferd, Miesner, Misner, Mesner, Mysner, Miesnar, Meisnar, Messyner, Messnar, Missner, Mestner, Misther, Mysther, Misery