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The Sanford Meisner Approach: The Preface

"American acting and the American training of actors has been greatly influenced by four actor-director-teachers: Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Robert Lewis and Sanford Meisner. Two of them, Strasberg and Adler, studied with Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boveslavsky-who had studied with and been directed by Stanislavsky. Later, Strasberg, Adler, Lewis and Meisner worked together at the Group Theatre where they further explored Stanislavsky's theories about acting and the training of actors.

Although this was their common root, they each interpreted Stanislavsky's ideas in their own way, combining his techniques with ideas of their own as they worked. Since then, these teachers have all trained many actors, directors, and teachers of acting, who have in turn trained another generation in the theater.

Sanford Meisner taught for many years at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he directed and produced dozens of plays, including several of my own. For several years before he left the Playhouse, he would ask me to come and direct his students in one of my plays. He was greatly talented as an actor and director, and, of course, as a teacher. He has always had a great love for the theatre and for actors and was most generous in sharing his knowledge with his students and others. In his work at the Playhouse and in his private classes he has trained many of our most distinguished actors and directors, as well as many of our most successful acting teachers.

Which brings me to Larry Silverberg: a gifted actor and director and a most inspired teacher of acting. Larry first impressed me with a production of one of my plays which he directed in Florida. Since then, I have seen some of his work in his Seattle Theatre, (again on a play of mine), and I am continually impressed with his resourcefulness and his dedication to his art. Occasionally, I get discouraged about the direction our theater is taking today, but when someone surfaces with the vision, passion, and talent of Larry Silverberg, I am reassured.

Both Silverberg's debt to Meisner and his own perception and clarity are evident in these exercises. This book touches the heart of the Meisner Approach as I understand it.

Larry begins by emphasizing that, in the best of all possible worlds, one would study acting with a qualified teacher. However, when this is not possible, this book will prove invaluable. Indeed, it should be of great value to anyone interested in our present theatre and in the techniques of training actors."

-- Horton Foote