| Playhouse
West - A Short History
Intro
- The Beginning - Turning
Point - Enter Mr. Meisner
Now that we had our own space on Lankershim, and were doing
regular productions. By 1985 our classes expanded to mornings,
afternoons, evenings, and weekends. Due to the sheer volume
of work which this expansion necessitated, I left my agent
and retained a personal friend, also an agent, for the sole
purpose of turning down politely whatever work would come
my way. Jeff, who was by now recognized as one of the top
actors in films, wanted to begin teaching as well. We gratefully
accommodated that desire, and ever since Jeff has been one
of our teachers and greatest contributors to the school. We
are very fortunate to have him.
It was about this time that one of my students, who had studied
privately with Mr. Meisner in New York and been recommended
by Mr. Meisner to work with us when she came to L.A., invited
me to her home for a holiday dinner. Mr. Meisner was visiting
L.A. and was at this dinner party. I had first met him when
I was 17 years old, but was studying with Stella Adler at
the time. I had seen him on several occasions in New York
through my Neighborhood Playhouse teacher friend. But I had
not spent any serious time with him as I had with Stella Adler,
Harold Clurman, or Lee Strasburg whom I observed teach for
three years at The Actor’s Studio in New York. This
gap in my background was soon to be remedied.
Sandy and I spent the evening talking and I had lunch with
him a day or two later. He was aware of what we were doing
in L.A. through my friend at The Playhouse in New York. He
invited me to come to New York to teach with him there. I
regretfully informed him that I could not do this. My roots
in L.A., as well as my own independent drive to create something
true to my own artistic vision rather than become a part of
an already established institution, were what held me back.
But I secretly wished there was a way I could devise to work
first-hand with this great teacher.
Sandy and I enjoyed a wonderful correspondence over the next
year. In these letters he would speak in detail about his
work. I have been told these are the last letters he wrote.
The following Christmas, Sandy visited L.A. again, and we
had daily meetings, lasting several hours each, in which we
discussed his technique from beginning to end. I took verbatim
notes on these two weeks of discussions. My teacher friend
at The Playhouse told me that Mr. Meisner, to his knowledge,
had never done such a thing before. I felt most fortunate,
and made some serious adjustments in my teaching approach
due to these meetings and the rare insight they provided me.
Mr. Meisner returned to N.Y. after the holidays, but we continued
our correspondence and talks via the phone. The winters were
becoming harsher to him in New York, for he was now in his
late seventies. Our closeness and his visits to L.A., where
he found a kindred spirit, contributed to the awakening of
the notion that perhaps he could move to Los Angeles and teach
there.
This occurred the following November of 1987, and he wrote
in a letter that we were a major contributing factor in this
decision. Arrangements were made for Sandy to teach his classes
here at Playhouse West so that he had a sense that he was
coming to an already established home. Not all of his students
were able to transfer to Los Angeles to continue studying
with him, so I turned over almost the whole of one of my classes
to Sandy so he could teach two full groups, one on Mondays
and Thursdays, and the other on Tuesdays and Fridays. We also
arranged for a house near our studio for Sandy to live in.
Thus began almost a decade of work with Mr. Meisner. It was
the most intense experience of my life due to the severity
of my schedule. I would teach a class from 9 a.m. till noon,
then another class until 3 p.m. Then, Mr. Meisner would teach
his class at 3:30 till 6:30, in which I would take word-for-word
notes, and then I would teach my final class from 7 till 10.
I never missed a class, and as I learned from Sandy, I would
make immediate adjustments and improvements in my own approach.
Whether this was due to Mr. Meisner evolving or a misinterpretation
by my teacher in New York I cannot say. I am inclined to believe
that Mr. Meisner was constantly improving and changing, and
that I had the benefit of the accumulated experiences of Sandy
over 60 years of teaching which made for innovations up to
the very end of his teaching. But I also noted that when students
would arrive in the class from other teachers of his technique
that Sandy would make significant changes in their way of
working. On Fridays, after his week of classes ended, we would
always have dinner and spend the evening reviewing the week
of classes and the lessons learned. At this time Sandy would
answer any questions I had on his procedures. More often than
not we would also see each other over the weekend, where yet
more discussions took place. I always came armed with a notebook
in which I recorded all these utterances. Needless to say,
that after almost a decade of this, I have a shelf full of
notebooks which will form the basis of a definitive book on
Mr. Meisner’s later work. Along with sitting in on all
these classes, I would have Sandy come see our scene nights
and plays. He would give me excellent feedback, and by the
time we got to our production of “Welcome Home, Soldier,”
in June of 1991, he gave us the ultimate compliment by saying
that he “hadn’t seen anything of such force in
the theater since Waiting for Lefty,” which he directed
in 1935.
During these years of Mr. Meisner’s classes, we shared
students. Mine would go to him, and his would often come to
me during the six month break he would take. It was not uncommon
for these students to continue their training at Playhouse
West after completing their two years with Sandy. Sandy was
always very happy with and complimentary of the work my students
did in his classes. Some of these students would take Sandy’s
class and at the same time study with me at The Playhouse.
Holly Gagnier was one of these intense learners who later
became one of our own very fine Staff Members. And Jeff Goldblum,
although having studied with Sandy years earlier in New York,
audited Sandy’s first several years of classes here
to sharpen his own teaching.
Sandy’s health began to give him troubles as the nineties
progressed. There was a time when he couldn’t get out
here in time for the start of his classes and some of the
students worked at Playhouse West until he could arrive. In
December of 1994 I attended Sandy’s last class. Due
to failing health for two seasons Sandy’s classes had
been primarily handled by several others, but Sandy always
made enough contributions to make it worthwhile to sit in
and continue to record what teaching he did. During this decade
with Sandy we grew into the most prolific company in Los Angeles,
evolving to the point that we were producing as many as eight
full-length plays at one time. We did some of these plays
in our own theater, and some in a 400 hundred seat theater
in Hollywood, always to outstanding critical and public response.
At the time of this writing, we have also advanced into the
production of film projects which use our acting company members.
Jeff has directed a film for Showtime which stars our members,
and one of our original plays, Aaron Gillespie Will Make You
a Star, is being made into a feature using our company members
exclusively. And we are happy to say our students have gone
on to achieve great success in their field, whether it be
acting, writing, directing or related areas of the business.
Thus, over our fifteen years of work we have proven the value
of our approach through the collective and individual accomplishments
of our students.
It is important to emphasize that while we owe a tremendous
debt of gratitude to Mr. Meisner for his generous instruction
and help over the years. The evolution of our school and theater
is something also influenced by the other teachers with whom
I came into contact, and the fine people I have been associated
with at Playhouse West. We have been privileged to work with
some outstanding and dedicated talents as far as our actors
and Staff is concerned. And we have a vision of our own and
an approach to transmitting the principles of acting that
exists with us exclusively, as well as the longest exposure
to Mr. Meisner’s latest work that anyone ever had. But
as real artists, we are not imitators of others, for all imitations
are doomed to failure. We have sought and stayed our own course,
even when it was costly financially or otherwise. What we
have developed over fifteen years of work at Playhouse West
we proudly claim, finally, as our own. It has produced some
of the best actors currently working and some of the best
theater done in Los Angeles in recent years. And we are still
young and in the process of growing. Like Mr. Meisner, we
hope to continually grow, change, and improve until we’ve
lowered the last curtain.
~ Robert Carnegie
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