WHAT IS THE MEISNER TECHNIQUE?

Who is Sanford Meisner?

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Born August 31, 1905, and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Sanford Meisner graduated from Erasmus Hall in 1923 and attended The Damrash Institute of Music (now Juilliard), where he studied to become a concert pianist before talking his way into a job in a Theater Guild production of Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted.   He realized then that acting was what he was looking to find.

 

In 1931, Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and Harold Clurman, among others, joined together to establish the Group Theatre.   The Group Theatre was the first permanent theatre company that brought "Method" acting, rooted in the methods of Konstantin Stanislavsky, to practice and prominence in America.

 

In 1933 Meisner became disenchanted with pure "Method" acting.  He wrote, "Actors are not guinea pigs to be manipulated, dissected, let alone in a purely negative way. Our approach was not organic, that is to say, not healthy."

 

So Sandy had ongoing discussions about technique with Adler, who worked with Stanislavsky in Paris, and Clurman, who took a deep interest in the American character.  At some point, Meisner realized that if American actors were ever going to achieve the goal of "living truthfully under imaginary circumstances," an American approach was needed.

 

The Neighborhood Playhouse provided a venue to develop that approach on his own and the Meisner Technique was born.

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The Meisner Technique

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The Meisner Technique is a respected technique in the professional world of acting.  It's a brick by brick approach to acting.  A training composed of interdependent exercises that build on one another where students work on a series of progressively complex exercises to develop an ability to listen, act on instinct, access an emotional life, bring the spontaneity of improvisation and the richness and truth of personal response to textual work.

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This Meisner method teaches the individual to be in the moment ("Moment to Moment") and these exercises help the actor respond to stimuli and trust their instincts.

 

Meisner believes that the actor must do what the character does; if the character is listening, the actor must really listen. ("Reality of Doing"). The actor doesn’t pretend to listen, but really listens and therefore really reacts. 

 

The Meisner Technique training is broken down into several sessions with each session deepening the actor's skills and craft with each exercise building upon the previous exercises.  The result is a highly skilled, confident, and authentic individual able to consistently behave truthfully and genuinely.

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These teachings when combined with scene work create an authentic foundation where all “acting” is stripped away so that actors will no longer force, fake, or "act", but work truthfully in each moment. Students will have have a deepened sense of truth and become free.
 

As students advance in technique, scene work will increase and Character and Impediments (including Accents) are introduced and tied all together with the Spoon River exercise.

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All this to build and deepen truthful relationships while being able to maintain the moment-to-moment, organic and truthful connection. 

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Exercises:

Repetition (Listening & Instinct)

Activity/Knock (Reality of Doing)

Fantasies (Freedom)

Private Moments (Public Solitude)

One-Action (Staying in the moment)

Spoon River (ties it all together)

 

This approach is very practical and truly unlocks the individual that not only it makes you a better actor, but also a better human being.

  

 

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