A rigorous standard of professional ethics, discipline, and personal responsibility is essential to the mastery of craft. At The Acting Studio New York, students are expected to arrive motivated, prepared, and willing to uphold a serious professional standard of conduct.
Enrollment in each class is intentionally limited to ensure that every student works regularly and receives focused, individual attention. Training takes place in a private, concentrated environment where students form direct working relationships with experienced professional instructors. Growth is never generalized. Each actor or director is nurtured, supported, and challenged according to individual needs and temperament.
The purpose of the work is discovery. We do not seek to manufacture performers. We seek to help artists uncover the truth of their own creative instrument and develop a disciplined relationship to acting or directing as a form of self expression.
Our training draws upon the standards established by Konstantin Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre, continued in the United States through Harold Clurman and Sanford Meisner of the Group Theatre. We incorporate the principles and practices of Stella Adler, Michael Chekhov, and Uta Hagen, while also embracing the explorations of Peter Brook, Joseph Chaikin, Viola Spolin, and Augusto Boal.
The Studio stands firmly in a lineage that honors both tradition and innovation.
Selected Reflections on Acting
• “Acting is the ability to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” — Sanford Meisner
• “Acting is a demonstration of the self, with or without a disguise.” — Joseph Chaikin
• “From the point of view of playwrights, they want to believe real things are happening to real people.” — George Bernard Shaw
• “Acting is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” — James Price
• “Unless you are willing to give your audience bigger and better, do not act.” — Jacob Adler
• “Plant your feet and tell the truth.” — James Cagney
