Author(s): Bella Merlin

Fiction

This is a hands-on, step-by-step guide to Stanislavsky's famous 'System' that illustrates, with exercises, each of his famous acting techniques. This comprehensive introduction to Stanislavsky is organised into three sections - Training; Rehearsal; and Performance. Each section offers definitions of the key terms found in Stanislavsky's teaching, illustrated with quotations and examples from Stanislavsky's own work. A final section offers a series of exercises to help today's actors practise using each of the 'tools' in turn. These include techniques such as given circumstances, the magic 'if' and emotion memory, which have made Stanislavsky famous the world over, but also some 50 others introduced one by one as they might become useful in the process of building a performance. "The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit" brings together in one volume for the first time all the terms and ideas explored and modified by Stanislavsky throughout his life from the early 1890s until his death in 1938. It is aimed chiefly at drama students, though professional actors and directors will also find it invaluable.