Konstantin Stanislavski

Konstantin Stanislavski
BornKonstantin Sergeievich Alekseiev
17 January [O.S. 5 January] 1863[1]
Moscow, Russian Empire
Died7 August 1938(1938-08-07) (aged 75)
Moscow, Soviet Union
OccupationActor
Theatre director
Theatre theorist
Literary movementNaturalism
Symbolism
Psychological realism
Socialist realism
Notable worksFounder of the MAT
Stanislavski's 'system'
An Actor's Work
An Actor's Work on a Role
My Life in Art
SpouseMaria Petrovna Perevostchikova
(stage name: Maria Lilina)

Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski (né Alexeiev; Russian: Константи́н Серге́евич Станисла́вский; 17 January [O.S. 5 January] 1863 – 7 August 1938) was a Russian actor and director.[2] He was widely known as an outstanding character actor and the many productions that he directed created a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation.[3] His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his 'system' of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique.[4]

Notes

  1. ↑ For dates before the Soviet state's switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in February 1918, this article gives the date in the New Style (Gregorian) date-format first, followed by the same day in the Old Style (Julian) date-format (which appears in square brackets and slightly smaller); this is to facilitate comparison between primary and secondary sources. The difference between the two is 12 days for Julian dates prior to 1 March 1900 [Gregorian 14 March] and 13 days for Julian dates on or after 1 March 1900. Thus, Stanislavski was born on the 17 January according to the Gregorian calendar that is in use today, while his birthday was 5 January according to the Julian calendar that was in use at the time. For more information on the difference between the two systems, see the article Adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Dates after 1 February 1918 are presented as normal.
  2. ↑ Stanislavski's first name is also transliterated as "Constantin", while his surname is also transliterated as "Stanislavsky" and "Stanislavskii". As discussed below, "Stanislavski" is a stage name.
  3. ↑ Benedetti (1999b, 254), Carnicke (2000, 12), Leach (2004, 14), and Milling and Ley (2001, 1).
  4. ↑ Carnicke (2000, 16), Golub (1998a, 1032), and Milling and Ley (2001, 1). Stanislavski began developing a 'grammar' of acting in 1906; his initial choice to call it his System struck him as too dogmatic, so he wrote it as his 'system' (without the capital letter and in inverted commas) to indicate the provisional nature of the results of his investigations—modern scholarship and the standard edition of Stanislavski's works follow that practice; see Benedetti (1999a, 169), Gauss (1999, 3—4), Milling and Ley (2001, 1), and Stanislavski (1938) and (1957).