The Stanislavski Masterclass

We were privileged to have Nick O’Brien from The Stanislavski Experience who delivered a drama theatre practitioner workshop to our Year 11 -13 drama students. The exercises explored in the workshop are based on those used by Stanislavski (a Russian stage actor and director who developed the naturalistic performance technique commonly known as ‘method acting’) in his later years, and have been developed to suit today’s drama and theatre students.

The Stanislavski Experience is an in-depth, practical exploration of key areas of a system which are put into practice with a chosen text.  The first part of the 4-hour masterclass worked through the system with exercises on, objectives, action, imagination, free body, communication, tempo rhythm, super-objective and germ and rehearsing text.

Students then worked through a Life in Art exercise, enabling them to explore the different stages of the Stanislavski rehearsal process culminating in an Active Analysis exercise. The workshop provided them with the tools needed to successfully create a character, explore and structure their work in order to create truthful and believable theatre whilst also challenging them to work at a high level. Our students were riveted and utterly immersed in the moment.