Method acting Method acting Method acting is a range of training and rehearsal techniques that seek to encourage sincere and emotionally expressive performances, as formulated by a number of different theatre practitioners. These techniques are built on Stanislavski's system, developed by the Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavski and captured in his books "An Actor Prepares", "Building a Character", and "Creating a Role". Among those who have contributed to the development of the Method, three teachers are associated with "having set the standard of its success", each emphasizing different aspects of the approach: Lee Strasberg (the psychological aspects), Stella Adler (the sociological
Presentational and representational acting and not simply a matter of poetics; rather it relates to the issue of function. The use of these critical terms (in an almost directly "opposed" sense from the critical mainstream usage detailed above) to describe two different forms of the actor–character relationship within an actor's methodology originates from the American actor and teacher Uta Hagen. She developed this use from a far more ambiguous formulation offered by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski in chapter two of his acting manual "An Actor's Work" (1938). In "When Acting is an Art", having watched his students' first attempts at a