Sanford Meisner Born in 1905 in Brooklyn In 1931 became an original member of the Group Theatre, whose members included Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg In the Mid 1930s he began teaching. His tenure at the Neigborhood Playhouse in New York is legendary.

Problems With The Group Theatre Believed they used too much paraphrasing Felt it put the actor too much in his head

Problems Continued The Group approach, using emotion memory, made the actor lose connection with his partner. Meisner felt that Acting came from the heart not the intellect. He felt that the connection between actors was vital to the life of the scene.

A New Focus When that bond is broken, then acting lost its special quality and power. He focused on Stanislavsky’s “Communion” Communion meant not only the communication between scene partners, but between actor and himself, and between actor and audience.

Interaction is Primary Meisner realized that 2 actors could be in a scene, have created great characters, be playing proper actions, be emotionally truthful, but still fail the scene. He felt what gave a scene energy and tension was the interaction between characters.

Exercises He designed exercises to force actors to respond genuinely to one another, and to live spontaneously, moment to moment, within imaginary circumstances. Please/No Word repetition game The Knock on the door