Sanford Meisner along with Lee Strasberg, Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, formed the Group Theatre in 1931.
Meisner disagreed with Strasberg's Emotional Memory Technique as he felt it limited the actor’s imagination. Influenced by the theories of the Great Russian acting teacher Constantine Stanislavsky, Meisner began focussing on his own technique in 1940.
A more instinctive rather than intellectual approach to acting, Meisner’s technique supported the belief that acting meant living truthfully under any given imaginary circumstance.
Meisner realised that two actors could be in a scene, have created great characters, be playing proper actions, be emotionally truthful and still fail the scene. What brought life and energy to a scene was the interaction between the characters.
The foundation of the technique is the Repetition exercise, developed for an actor to focus their attention on the simple and real behaviour of their working partner, enabling a far greater connection between both actors.
Meisner training has evolved over the years and like all training in any field, it is not the same as it was in the forties, fifties, sixties and so on.
Consideration to how fast technology moves today has inspired the training at The Actor’s Pulse to incorporate new and innovative approaches that are necessary to not only develop a strong foundation for a technique of acting that works, but to also remain years ahead with a solid craft at all times.
