Method acting

Method acting is an approach to performance in which actors use personal experience, emotional work, and psychological or physical preparation to create believable characters.

Emotional memory: An acting technique that draws on an actor’s remembered feelings to evoke emotion in a scene. It is one route by which Method actors connect personal experience to a character’s emotions.
Konstantin Stanislavski: A Russian actor, director, and theatre theorist who developed a systematic approach to realistic acting. His system supplied the central ideas later adapted into the American Method.
Elia Kazan: An American theatre and film director who helped bring Method-trained performers to prominence. His directing and association with the Group Theatre connected Method acting to influential stage and film work.
Classical acting: An approach to performance emphasizing vocal and physical technique, often applied to heightened or poetic texts. Its visible technical demands contrast with the Method’s emphasis on psychological preparation.
Sense memory: An acting exercise that recreates sensory impressions, such as taste, texture, or temperature, from memory. Sensory detail can make a character’s circumstances feel concrete without relying on generalized emotion.
Moscow Art Theatre: A Russian theatre company founded in 1898 by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Its productions demonstrated the ensemble realism that shaped Stanislavski’s acting system.
Marlon Brando: An American actor known for performances in films including A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront. His naturalistic screen performances became widely associated with Method acting.
Brechtian acting: A performance approach associated with Bertolt Brecht that encourages critical distance rather than complete emotional identification. It deliberately resists the immersive character identification often linked with Method acting.
Substitution (acting): An acting technique that replaces fictional circumstances with personally meaningful equivalents for the performer. It lets an actor approach a character’s fictional stakes through familiar personal associations.
Group Theatre: A New York theatre company active from 1931 to 1941, known for socially engaged plays and ensemble acting. Its members brought Stanislavskian training into American theatre and helped establish the Method.

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