Stella Adler

687 Pages·2014·3.87 MB·English

An Applause Original
THE ART OF ACTING by Stella Adler
Compiled and edited by Howard Kissel
Copyright © 2000 by Applause Books
Afterword copyright © 2000 by Howard
Kissel
All rights reserved. Printed in Canada

Jacket and frontispiece photos
courtesy of Irene Gilbert, Archival
Collection, Stella Adler Academy and
Theatre—Los Angeles

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9781617746192

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-
Publication Data
Library of Congress Card Number: 00-
108803

British Library Cataloging-in-
Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
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Table of Contents
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PREFACE
To me Stella Adler is much more than
a teacher of acting. Through her work
she imparts the most valuable kind of
information — how to discover the
nature of our own emotional
mechanics and therefore those of
others. She never lent herself to vulgar
exploitations, as some other well-
known so-called “methods” of acting
have done. As a result, her
contributions to the theatrical culture
have remained largely unknown,
unrecognized, and unappreciated.
As far as I know, she was the only
American artist who went to Paris to
study with Konstantin Stanislavski, who
was himself a skilled observer of
human behavior and a most prominent
figure in Russian theatre. She brought
back to this country a knowledge of his