| Playhouse
West - A Short History
Intro
- The Beginning - Turning
Point - Enter Mr. Meisner
We continued with two classes a week for at least three years.
Jeff was becoming a very popular and in demand actor, but
always in between his films he would work with us. I was kept
comfortably busy with a great deal of work on episodic television
and movies of the week. There were a great number who wanted
to study with us, but we had to keep the class size limited.
We never advertised. It was all word-of-mouth. Then, on a
Wednesday after I had been working on a movie, I was driving
to the Rec Center to teach the class. On the way there I realized
I was looking forward more to the teaching I would do that
night than the acting I did during the day. It was at that
moment that I decided to let the classes expand and I would
acquire additional space to handle the overflow.
One of our members was a real estate agent and eventually
we acquired our current space on Lankershim. We had, over
the past years, met in so many locations we have lost count.
We were at The Chamber Theater, which is on Ventura; at a
theater in Hollywood, which we had to leave because it became
a 7-Eleven; and we were at two theaters in Burbank. We were
even at MGM Studios when one of the stars of a series wanted
to work on her acting during lunch breaks. A car-full of students
would go down to the lot and work several times a week in
a private class there. It got to the point where we were in
so many locations the students weren’t sure what the
biggest challenge was, learning the technique or remembering
at what location we were meeting and when.
Even before our move to Lankershim we began experimenting
with productions. I had learned much earlier in my life from
Harold Clurman, who founded The Group Theater, the necessity
of having a like-trained ensemble if the acting and production
was to be of the highest standard. I had also always believed
that a serious training ground must include public performances
by its members. This keeps you honest. A class can be a kind
of “hothouse” environment in which all members
fall into a common language and support, and convince themselves
that they’re good, when in fact they may be missing
the mark entirely. The public will always tell you when you’re
doing something of value.
I had also noticed a strange phenomenon in New York. There
were many groups there that did productions who were exclusively
trained in Mr. Meisner’s approach. From what I could
see, their productions never looked like the work in class.
In fact, they looked like most productions I saw. One or two
good actors and the rest of the work conventional, anticipated,
blocked out and forced. I even found myself in one of these
productions in New York made up of “graduates.”
Within two days they were blocking the scenes and following
the conventional approach to play production. I immediately
quit.
In L.A., with our own group, we determined that if we were
to do a production it would really represent our work and
principles in class. This meant long rehearsals, often taking
place as a part of the classroom work, and an insistence that
we use only our current students in productions and never
have outside influences, like directors from other approaches
or places, work with our people. We do it all ourselves. Just
like The Group Theater or Moscow Art Theater. As a result
of this philosophy we have produced some of the most exciting
and high quality theater in L.A. with a resoundingly positive
critical and public response to our plays.
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