AN ACTING TEACHER'S BIBLIOGRAPHY

These books, up to 1961, are mostly Alvina Krause class texts.  Downs, Benedetti and Mason were students of hers.  Benedetti is also much influenced by Viola Spolin, Robert Breen and others.

Peter Brook is on this list because he talks eloquently about the shift from the kind of theatre AK knew and worked in versus the avant garde that was a response to WWII.  He does not talk directly about acting.

I think there are certainly more of these books that she mentioned to David Press, mostly early works on physical culture and voice.  I also think there are more of them in this house, but they are a sly bunch and hide, even sliding in among the folded sheets in the linen closet.

(Years are first years of publication, most have had many editions.)

Boleslavsky, Richard.  ACTING:  THE FIRST SIX LESSONS (1933)

Rosenstein, Sophie; Larrae Haydon; Sparrow, Wilburg.  MODERN ACTING: A MANUAL  (1936)

Stanislavski, Constantin.  AN ACTOR PREPARES (1936)  (trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood)

Seyler, Athene & Haggard, Stephen.  THE CRAFT OF COMEDY (1946)

Stanislavski, Constantin.  BUILDING A CHARACTER (1949)  (trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood)

Fergusson, Francis.  THE IDEA OF A THEATER  (1949)

Chekhov, Michael.  TO THE ACTOR  (1953)

Cole, Toby & Chinoy, Helen Erich.  DIRECTING THE PLAY (1953)

McGaw, Charles  ACTING IS BELIEVING  (1955)

Cole, Toby and Chinoy, Heen Krich  ACTORS ON ACTING: THE THEORIES, TECHNIQUES, AND PRACTICES OF THE GREAT ACTORS OF ALL TIMES AS TOLD IN THEIR OWN WORDS  (1949)

Granville-Barker, Harley  ON DRAMATIC METHOD (1956)

Oxenford, Lyn.  PLAYING PERIOD PLAYS  (1957)

Funk, Lewis & Booth, John E.   ACTORS TALK ABOUT ACTING (1961)




Spolin, Viola  IMPROVISATION FOR THE THEATER: A HANDBOOK OF TEACHING AND DIRECTING TECHNIQUES (1963)

Brook, Peter.  THE EMPTY SPACE.  (1968)

Benedetti, Robert.  THE ACTOR AT WORK.(1970)

Rosenberg, Harold.  ACT AND THE ACTOR(1970)

Downs, David.  THE ACTOR’S EYE:  SEEING AND BEING SEEN, A FUNDAMENTAL TEXT (1995)

Benedetti, Robert.  Update of THE ACTOR AT WORK (2005)

Benedetti, Robert  THE ACTOR IN YOU: SIXTEEN SIMPLE STEPS TO UNDERSTANDING THE ART OF ACTING (2006)

Mason, Marshall W.  CREATING LIFE ON STAGE:  A DIRECTOR'S APPROACH TO WORKING WITH ACTORS  (2007)