Stanislavski

"Love the art in yourself
and not yourself in the art."

Konstantin Stanislavski was a Russian theatre practitioner who was born in Moscow on January 17th 1863, and died at the age of 75 on August 7th 1938. 

He was an actor, theorist and director, and he is most well-known for his astounding theories in naturalism and realism for theatre.

His real name was Konstantin Sergeyevich Alexeyev but he changed his surname to Stanislavski because he didn't want his parents to know about him performing in amateur productions. As a child, he was interested in the circus, ballet and puppetry, and his whole family were lovers of the theatre. During his years in working as a practitioner, he produced a couple of books to do with his acting technique, his most famous by far being 'An Actor Prepares', which has a guide on all of his techniques and exercises for an actor, he called his system the 'art of representation'.

In 1898, both Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich Danchenko founded the Moscow Art Theatre company. This was very handy for Stanislavski because with his wealth and this opportunity, he was able to explore and develop new topics in his research. Their first performance that was created was 'The Seagull' by Anton Chekhov. During this time, Stalin had rule over Russia so the company would be the political voice of the USSR, and to stay away from Stalin's wrath, he went to live in isolation in Moscow near the end of his life, so he could carry on with his work and nothing else.

As Stanislavski delved deeper into his research, he found that he was much more fond with the concept of realism rather than naturalism, and later on he found the subject of symbolism too.

The students that he taught at the end of his days went on to teach others that then taught in the famous 'actor's studio' in New York.

*Source - BBC Bitesize*