Stella Adler Studio of Acting
Stella Adler Studio of Acting [1] (formerly Stella Adler Conservatory) is an acting school in New York founded by the actress and teacher Stella Adler [2][3]
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[edit] History
Concurrent with her work as an actor and director, Stella Adler began to teach in the early 1940s at the Erwin Piscator Workshop at the New School for Social Research in New York. She left the faculty in 1949 to establish her own studio in New York in the same year.[4]
Combining what she had learned from the Yiddish theatre, The Group Theatre, Broadway, Hollywood, and Constantin Stanislavski, Stella created the Stella Adler Theatre Studio, later renamed the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting and more recently the Stella Adler Studio of Acting,[3] here she taught acting for many decades,[5] and in 1985 she opened the Stella Adler Academy and Theatre in Los Angeles [6]
The studio offered courses in principles of acting, voice and speech, Shakespeare, movement, and makeup, as well as workshops in play analysis, character, scene preparation and acting styles. Onstage experience was acquired by performances of scenes and plays before an invited audience. Among her early students were Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Warren Beatty, Elaine Stritch, Mario Van Peebles, Harvey Keitel and Candice Bergen.
[edit] The Stella Adler Studio of Acting, New York
The Stella Adler Studio of Acting is located in New York City. The Studio was founded in 1949 by Stella Adler. In 1969, The Stella Adler Studio of Acting became the first professional training school to become affiliated with NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The Studio became a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in 2000. The mission of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting is to create an environment with the purpose of nurturing theatre artists who value humanity, their own and others, as their first and most precious priority while providing art and education to the greater community.
The scope of the Studio’s current activities can be summarized in three categories: 1) Professional Actor Training, the core activity of the Studio; 2) The Stella Adler Outreach Division, which provides free training to low-income inner-city teenagers and 3) The Harold Clurman Art Series which presents cultural events that are free and open to the public. The Stella Adler Studio of Acting currently trains over 500 students per year in full-time, part-time and summer programs and also presents lectures, poetry readings, jazz, classical music, theater, and dance theater events. In addition, the Stella Adler Outreach Division provides free training to approximately 300 inner-city youth each year. Stella’s daughter Ellen is the Studio’s Executive Chair. Tom Oppenheim, grandson of Stella Adler, is the Artistic Director and President. The Stella Adler Studio of Acting has a West Coast sister school, the Art of Acting Studio.
The Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York is not affiliated with the Stella Adler Academy/Stella Adler Theater in Los Angeles.
[edit] The Stella Adler Academy of Acting & Theatre, in Los Angeles
The Stella Adler Academy of Acting & Theatre [7] is not affiliated with the Stella Adler Studio of Acting New York City.
Stella’s long history with Hollywood meant she had close ties and strong connections in the Los Angeles area. She taught for many years at various locations in Los Angeles and she and long time friend and protege Joanne Linville eventually opened the doors to the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Argyle. Some of the notable names that have passed through the Hollywood conservatory include Nick Nolte, Salma Hayek,[8] Eric Stoltz, Clifton Collins Jr., Deidre Hall, Sean Astin, John Charles Jopson, John Ritter, Cybill Shepherd, Michael Richards, Benicio del Toro,[8] and Mark Ruffalo.[8]
Proteges Joanne Linville and Irene Gilbert persuaded Stella Adler to open the academy in 1985 in Los Angeles.[9] Together, Gilbert and Linville are considered the school's co-founders.[8] Gilbert would remain the director of the school for twenty years.[8]
The original school was located in a small theater at Hollywood Boulevard and Argyle Avenue.[8] A fire forced the temporary closure of the school in 1991.[9] The building was threatened with demolition to make way for a proposed subway line at the time of Adler's death in 1992.[8][9] In 1994, Irene Gilbert reopened the school present location at 6773 Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.[9] It was renamed the Stella Adler Academy of Acting is celebrating it's 25th anniversary in 2010. The historic location housed the famous Embassy Club in the 1930s.
The school is an acting studio offering extensive training for actors in theatre, film, and television. The facility houses the not-for-profit Stella Adler Theatre, the Irene Gilbert Theatre, The Studio C Theatre, classrooms, dance studio, music studio, library, dressing rooms, video and equipment room, scene shop and administrative offices, all dedicated to teaching Stella’s technique.
Linville continues to teach at the academy as the lead instructor for the last 25 years. Irene Gilbert died in 2011.[9]
In 2010, alumni of the school formed the Stella Adler Los Angeles Theatre Collective.[10]
[edit] Notable alumni
- Marlon Brando
- Robert De Niro
- Warren Beatty
- Elaine Stritch
- Mario Van Peebles
- Harvey Keitel
- Candice Bergen
- Nick Nolte
- James Coburn
- Benicio del Toro
- Melanie Griffith
- Clifton Collins Jr.
- Salma Hayek
- Sidney Pollock
- Anthony Quinn
- Mark Ruffalo
- Martin Sheen
- Ayşecan Tatari
- Peter Bogdanovich
- Bianca Lawson
- Kate Mulgrew
- Cybill Shepherd [11]
- Alexander Godunov
- Sean Astin
- Darrell M. Smith
- Tommy Wiseau [12]
- Jane Levy
[edit] Pop culture
- The band Unwritten Law has a song called "Actress Model Dancer Whatever" which contains the lyrics, "Dear Mom, I'm dating an actress, and I'm just writing to let you know why I'm so far from home. Followed her to Stella Adler. A method man was what she was after..."
- In Season Five, Episode Four, of Sabrina the Teenage Witch it is said by the train conductor: "Here these are your parts. Learn them. Or, as we at the Stella Adler Company say, become them."
- Peter Shulman, Well known contemporary artist, studied at Stella Adler Studio of Acting in 1959 and credits the school and Stella Adler with instilling in him the motivation for many of his well known paintings. "In the classes there I learned to look into myself and bring things inside out onto canvas".[13]
[edit] References
- ^ Adler Gets Posthumous Hollywood Walk Star Fox News, Friday, August 04, 2006.
- ^ Stella Adler Conservatory - History and Philosophy Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.
- ^ a b A New Act Unfolds in Drama Dynasty New York Times, April 9, 2008.
- ^ Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting Britannica.com.
- ^ Stella Adler, 91, an Actress And Teacher of the Method New York Times, December 22, 1992.
- ^ Adler Stella Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing the Twentieth Century, by Susan Ware, Stacy Lorraine Braukman, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN 067401488X. Page 9-10
- ^ Adler Gets Posthumous Hollywood Walk Star Fox News
- ^ a b c d e f g Nelson, Valerie J. (2011-05-28). "Irene Gilbert dies at 76; cofounder of Stella Adler's Los Angeles acting academy". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/28/local/la-me-irene-gilbert-20110528. Retrieved 2011-06-03.
- ^ a b c d e "Actress Irene Gilbert ran LA acting academy". Associated Press (San Francisco Chronicle). 2011-05-31. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/05/31/state/n075254D68.DTL. Retrieved 2011-06-02.
- ^ http://losangeles.broadwayworld.com/article/Stella_Adler_Los_Angeles_Theatre_Collective_Announces_Inaugural_Season_20100226
- ^ Alumni
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRN9FpMkUbUl
- ^ Gaye Anne Himmelsbach http://petershulman.com
