Gurus: The Story of Acting from Stanislavsky to Succession

A quick fast forward to 1935 when the Group Theatre is on Broadway with Awake and Sing, while down the block, Michael Chekhov stars in a Russian Language Inspector General. Stella Adler heads backstage to ask Chekhov to teach the Group. A very young Beatrice Straight pitches Chekhov to come to Dartington Hall, a center for education, agriculture and the arts founded by her parents, Lord and Lady Elmhirst, on a sprawling English estate. Guess who wins.

How did we get from the bad old days of stagey, artificial, over-the-top acting to where we are today, with performances that are subtle, authentic and true? In this episode we meet some of the main figures in the story including Stanislavsky and Jacques Copeau. We follow the diaspora out of Russia of Moscow Art Theatre players that sparks Russian fever in America. We also follow the parallel journey out of Paris that eventually landed on the shores of the UK and transformed the major conservatories.