Hollywood Studio Magazine (June 1970)

STELLA ADLER STELLA ADLER - Internationally, known drama instructor and actress is accepting stud-* en ts for limited enrollmen t classes for a short time only. Stella Adler, internationally-known distinguished lady of the theatre who has attained distinctive success as an actress, director and now teacher of acting techniques, arrives in Los Angeles soon for a limited visit. She will personally conduct late afternoon-evening classes in the Melrose Theatre, 7420 Melrose, Los Angeles for a Basic Acting Technique and Professional Scene and Characterization. The famed teacher will interview applicants from May 15th for the June 1st to July 10th sessions, and may be reached by calling 933-9473. For the uninitiated, Miss Adler studied for the theater with her actor — manager father, Jacob Adler, Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boleslavsky at the American Laboratory Theater in New York, and, of course, is a foremost exponent of famed Constantin Stanislavsky’s method. It was after notable successes in many stage productions, and after directing Golden Boy both in California and London, plus productions of Lorca, Arthur Miller, and Shaw, and Lewis Carroll’s “Alice In Wonderland” that the talented thespian-teacher turned her attention to teaching in 1949. It was then Miss Adler established her own Stella Adler, Theatre Studio in New York. Last year, the brilliant lady served as adjunct Professor of acting at the Yale Drama School, and this is her first teaching seminar in Southern California since that assignment. Stella Adler is a strict deciple of the Stanislavsky method which is complex but highly successful. According to her teaching, however, students are made to understand much of it is NOT new, that it was influenced by many older techniques of different countries and different actors. “A good teacher,” Miss Adler points out, “can help the actor understand that “the method” is fluid enough and anybody who touches it, must in fact, re-formulate it by understanding it in his body and soul.” In other words, to paraphrase the foregoing quote in today’s lingo, Stella Adler teaches the Stanislavsky method which in essence, is to learn how to “do your own thing.” Pitfalls, however, according to the actress-teacher, are in using “the method” superficially. Then, there is a tendency to limit its use and to deny its infinite possibilities. Discipline is most important, she adds, and that means the discipline to “do ones own thing.” Training to be an actor is not easy and chance for complete development will not come too often in the actors own life. If all the actor wants is money, he may quickly leave the theatre, but if success is understood in terms also of his growth as an artist, then he will become an artist! During her tenure at Yale, Miss Adler was asked by a student what she thought of nudity on the stage. She replied, “Anyone can get up on my stage and take off their clothes, but can just anyone get on my stage and act?” She contends the pressures set for the actor by the outside commercial world is not valid to his work. The actor’s work needs culture, love, care, or it will perish destroying the actor in its wake. “I believe,” says Miss Adler, “The actor that is truly a craftsman must return to school every four or five years.” According to Stanislavsky, it is necessary to purge himself constantly of such faults of vanity, convention and self-satisfaction. Only by constant vigilance and study can the actor eliminate these shortcomings which are highly detrimental to true creative interpretation. If you cannot interpret, you are not a professional. Students come to Miss Adler from all over the world, and as on this occasion, she is welcomed by the acting fraternity in Southern California. Among those she has trained are: Warren Beatty, Jayne Meadows, Pamela Tiffen, James Coburn, Robert Q. Lewis, Robert Loggia, Nina Foch, Rita Gam, Jerome Robbins, Elaine Stritch, Shelley Winters, Gia Scala, Mala Powers, Leslie Uggams, and John Saxon. From 5%* to 7V2%" and everything in between! All the new savings plans are available at N.H.F. and all accounts are insured to $20,000. Call or come in for details. •Regular passbook accounts. **$100,000-1 year term. North Holly wood Federal Savings and Loan Association • 4455 Lankershim Blvd.-off the Ventura Freeway Branch Office: 5226 Lankershim Blvd. Assets over 90 million dollars. 7A