Creating a Role

No-one has had greater influence on acting as we know it than Stanislavski. His 'system' or interpretations of it - has become the central force determining almost every performance we see on stage or screen. His teaching is principally set out in three famous books: An Actor Prepares, Building a Character and Creating a Role. It is still the only comprehensive theory of acting we possess. In the first book, An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski dealt with the inner imaginative processes. In the second Building a Character, he concentrated on the body, the voice and other physical means of expression. In Creating a Role, the third book, he describes the elaborate preparation that precedes actual performance.Creating a Role "describes the elaborate marination that precedes the acutal performance. The analyses of Othello and The Inspector General, which make up Parts Two and Three, show a mind cutting through text like an inspired psneumatic-drill...Altogether Creating a Role is a brilliant little treatise and a careful reading is worth several lessons in almost any English acting academy" (Charles Marowitz, The Observer)

Constantin Stanislavski (1863-1938), arguably the most influential director in the history of the theater, was the founder of the renowned Moscow Art Theater. A pioneer of psychological realism and improvisation on the stage, he devoted his life to developing the performance techniques now emulated throughout the world.