Seven of the greatest acting teachers in America conducted a two-hour tutorial last Friday (Feb. 4) for the benefit of the American Theatre Critics Association, holding its annual winter meeting in New York City. Between them, the seven have 250 years of teaching experience and are the heirs to legends such as Harold Clurman, Lee Strassberg, Stella Adler and even--by only one or two degrees of separation--Konstantin Stanislavski himself. They didn’t teach me to act, but I learned a helluva lot about how they work and the principles they value.
The panelists included Sanford Meisner disciple William Esper; Lee Strassberg disciple (and one-time daughter-in-law) Sabra Jones McAteer; Harold Clurman disciple Ronald Rand; Michael Chekhov disciple Joanna Merlin; also Terry Schreiber, founder of the T. Schreiber Studio, and independent teacher and author Sande Shurin.
The final panelist was Mary McCann, Executive Director of the Atlantic Acting School, perhaps the youngest of the seven. I remember when she was tending bar in Chicago and when Paul Zimet was a local bank teller. Or was it Clark Gregg? The three are among the co-founders of the Atlantic Theatre Company and the Atlantic Acting School, one of the most successful non-profit theatre organizations in New York in the last 25 years, which is how long the company has been around. All the young founders were acting students of David Mamet and William H.
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