After Meisner: A 21st Century Acting Technique

by Williams, Scott

• ISBN13: 9781408185049
• ISBN10: 1408185040
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-11-17
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama

Summary

After Meisner proposes concrete and sensible answers for the questions modern actors ask. In weaving together some simple, direct, practicable exercises with years of direct teaching experience, the received wisdom of master teachers, and common-sense approaches to the problems actors face, Scott Williams constructs a complete Meisner-based approach to the actor's craft, from early days to opening nights.

Most acting texts tend to fall into one category or another. They are either highly discursive, theory-laden tomes on the ideas behind acting techniques, or they feature workbook-like approaches. By employing a sidebar or dual-column approach, After Meisner places its exercises in the context of the ideas it is there to develop.

Using a free-wheeling, opinionated and personal style, After Meisner empowers actors by speaking their language, and by providing them with real tools to use in their careers.

Author Biography

Scott Williams is the Director of The Impulse Company, a London-based theatre conservatory and producing organisation. He has taught for fifteen years at The Actors Centre, London's premier venue for training the professional actor, and before that, was on the faculties of the College of Notre Dame and Foothill College in California. Scott trained Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, and with William Ball at the American Conservatory Theatre.