Who is Constantine Stanislavski?

• Born in Moscow, Russia in 1863 (died:1938)
• Began as an actor and moved on to become a director and teacher
• Parents didn’t indulge in his passion for theatre, so he changed his name
• Developed a new system of actor training and development – a new way to approach theatre
• It took years of experimenting to get to what is now known as the Stanislavski system

5 elements of actor preparation:

Relaxation
Learning to relax the muscles and eliminate physical tension while performing

Concentration
Learning to think like an actor and to respond to one’s own imagination

Observation
Discovering the sensory base of work: learning to memorise and recall sensations, often called “sense memory” and/or “affective memory”; learning to work from a small sensation and expand it, a technique Stanislavski called “spheres of attention”

Communication
developing the ability to interact with other performers spontaneously, and with an audience, without violating the world of the play

Imagination
The more fertile the actor’s imagination, the more interesting would be the choices made in terms of objectives, physical action, and creating given circumstances around the character
there’s no such thing as ‘actually’ on the stage. Art is a product of imagination, as the work of a dramatist should be. the aim of the actor should be to use his/her technique to turn the play into a theatrical reality. in this process, the imagination plays by for the greater part.