About Sanford Meisner (1905-1997)

Sanford Meisner began acting at age 19, when he was accepted into the Theatre Guild in New York. There he met, and became close friends with, Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg. The men were part of a circle of colleagues who, in 1931, formed the Group Theatre, which wielded a tremendous influence on the craft of American acting.

After more than a decade with the Group Theatre, Meisner began teaching at the famed Neighborhood Playhouse. Here he developed his own acting technique, based on the work of Konstantin Stanislavski and his friend Lee Strasberg. In the Meisner Technique, emotion and subtext arise from the moment-to-moment truths that result from present circumstances as opposed to their coming out of the “acting” of an emotion or an action. One of his most well-known exercises is called Repetition, in which a word or phrase is repeated until a natural change of intention and/or inflection occurs based on the reality of the moment. The goal is for partners to react truthfully to what is actually happening.

Meisner counted among his students such now well-known names as James Caan, Gregory Peck, Jon Voight, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Fosse, Sydney Pollack, and Charles E. Conrad. Noted writers Arthur Miller and David Mamet also studied with him. Later, when he was in his 80′s, Meisner left New York for California. In 1995, he and his long time creative partner/personal assistant, Jimmy Carville, and his protégé, Martin Barter, founded The Sanford Meisner Center in North Hollywood. Meisner passed away in 1997 at the ripe age of 91. He is still considered one of the most important acting theorists of the 20th century.

About Charles E. Conrad (1925 – )

Charles E. Conrad studied directing for the theatre at the Carnegie Institute of Technology where he graduated with a Master’s Degree. In 1952, he began studying acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. Meisner soon recognized his talent and prospects as a future acting teacher and it wasn’t long before Conrad became his senior assistant. Among the students Conrad worked with were Robert Duvall, Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon and Joanne Woodward.

After moving to the west coast in the 1960′s, Conrad opened the CEC Studio in Burbank. He eventually became known as one of most distinguished acting teachers of the film industry. Like his teacher, Meisner, Conrad used the Repetition exercise to elevate the connection between acting partners. Conrad, however, took it a step further by making the script part of the exercise. The creative process was thus kicked up a notch with the integration of the written word. Actors no longer relied solely on the text for all their information. Instead, they were working in a highly intuitive state; they were not acting, per se, but were spontaneously and naturally reacting to each other, and to the circumstances and situations created in the moment.

In 1993, Conrad began to gradually retire from teaching; by 1994 he had completely retired. He now makes his home in a secluded section of North Carolina.