Stanislavski's acting system has had a major influence on modern Western acting. One of his students, Richard Boleslavsky, founded the American Laboratory Theatre in 1925 and helped introduce Stanislavski's techniques to the US. Another student, Lee Strasberg, co-founded the Group Theatre in 1931, the first American company to use Stanislavski's methods in practice. Sanford Meisner, also a Group Theatre actor, went on to develop his own technique based on Stanislavski called the Meisner Technique. Many famous actors since, such as Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, and Meryl Streep, have employed versions of Stanislavski's

2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
• His innovative contribution to modern European and American realistic acting
has remained at the core of mainstream western performance training for
much of the last century.
• Stanislavski's work was as important to the development of socialist realism
in the USSR as it was to that of psychological realism in the United States.
Many actors routinely identify his 'system' with the American
Method, although the latter's exclusively psychological techniques contrast
sharply with Stanislavski's multivariant, holistic and psychophysical approach

3. • Legacy of his way of acting
Boleslavsky
BOLESLAVSKY LEGACY
• Founded American Laboratory
Theatre
Ricahrd
• Stanislavski had different pupils during each of Boleslavky
the phases of discovering and experimenting
with a Universal System of acting. • Ricahrd B.’s student
• One such student, , founded • Co-founded the first American
acting company to put
the American Laboratory Theatre in 1925. Lee Stanislavski's first discoveries into
Strasberd theatrical practice.
• One of Boleslavsky's students
went on to co-found the Group Theatre
(1931-1940) with Harold Clurman and Cheryl
Crawford, the first American acting company to
put Stanislavski's first discoveries into theatrical
practice.

4. MEISNER LEGACY
Another of Stanislavski's students, Sanford Meisner, was an actor at
The Group Theater who went on to teach at New York City's
Neighborhood Playhouse where he developed what came to be known
as the Meisner Technique.

5. Among the actors who have employed Stanislavski's System in some
form are:
Jack Garfein, Jack Nicholson, Marilyn Monroe,
James Dean, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift,
Harvey Keitel, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman,
Warren Beatty, Robert Duvall, Johnny Depp,
Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier…

6. …Jessica Lange, William Hurt, Dustin Hoffman,
Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman,
Kevin Spacey, Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave,
Benicio del Toro, Mark Ruffalo, Vincent
D'Onofrio, Kate Winslet, Adrien Brody, Denzel
Washington, Elizabeth Taylor, Hilary Swank,
Anthony Hopkins, John Alexander and Sean
Penn.