Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods Book

With clarity and insight, Richard Brestoff introduces the great acting teachers, explaining their techniques, and how they are being applied today. Beginning with Quintilian and Deslaree, he guides us to the present with an inside look at what is currently being taught in the major acting schools and private acting studios; The Actor's Studio, Yale University, NYU, Juilliard and many more are visited. Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods will help you understand the most important ideas about acting, where they originated, and how they are...

Al Ralston - The Coast Book Review Service

It is 1951 and a small British film opens in a few theaters across America. The star is Michael Redgrave and he plays a middle-aged school teacher years past his prime. He's a basic failure with an unfaithful wife and none of it matters at all as he addresses the boys he's known at school, and for that one moment in time, we get to see the humanity of the man and his speech is a heartbreaking triumph, as good as anything you'll ever see on film. "The Browning Version" is now a classic and Redgrave shows an understated power that is rare in any medium; as Tom Wolfe would say, he had the right stuff and plenty of it. Richard Brestoff is no slouch himself, an actor/teacher/writer who discusses teachers' methods and schools that have perfected and offered approaches to the mysterious world of acting. Yes, there are actors that have fallen off horses and were discovered into stars and, if they ever had acting class one, nobody knows about it. Richard Mitchum comes immediately to mind and if you think he can't act, you definitely missed "Night of the Hunter". The average person will never be a Mitchum, but anyone serious about the profession of acting could benefit from the sound principles illuminated in this book. Brestoff discusses Adler, Meyerhold, Meisner, Grotowski, Stanislavski and numerous others who have helped performers realize their potential. An excellent chapter devoted to training school profiles will produce some pain ($16,000 a year at the Actor's Studio in New York and $19,000 at New York University), but each program is discussed and evaluated with specific teachers and types of training techniques offered. This is another excellent title from Smith and Kraus, one of the finest performing arts publishing programs in the country.