Method acting

Method acting, known as the Method, is a group of rehearsal techniques that seek to encourage sincere and expressive performances through identifying with, understanding, and experiencing a character's inner motivation and emotions. Theatre practitioners built these techniques on Stanislavski's system, developed by the Russian and Soviet actor and director Konstantin Stanislavski and captured in his books An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, and Creating a Role. The American version of this approach was developed and labeled "the Method" primarily by Lee Strasberg, who co-founded the Group Theatre in New York in 1931. Key members Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner eventually rejected aspects of Strasberg's technique and left the group. Adler was the only member of the Group Theatre to study with Stanislavski. Strasberg, Adler and Meisner all became noted acting teachers with differing approaches to the Method. Between them they helped train many prominent American stage and film actors of the post-World War II generation.