Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Stella Adler Studio of Acting

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Formation
  
1949

Headquarters
  
New York City

Website
  
stellaadler.com

Founder
  
Stella Adler

Type
  
Drama school

Region served
  
United States

Phone
  
+1 212-689-0087

Founded
  
1949

Stella Adler Studio of Acting

Address
  
31 West 27th Street, Floor 3, New York, NY 10001, United States

Notable alumni
  
Robert De Niro, Mark Ruffalo, Benicio del Toro, Steven Strait, Selma Blair

Similar
  
Tisch School of the Arts, American Academy of Dramat, Neighborhood Playhouse School of, New York Film Academy, Royal Academy of Dramat

Profiles

Stella adler studio of acting an inside look


The Stella Adler Studio of Acting (formerly Stella Adler Conservatory) is an acting school in New York founded by the actress and teacher Stella Adler.

Contents

Stella adler studio of acting highlights


History

Concurrent with her work as an actor and director, Stella Adler began to teach in the early 1940s at the Erwin Piscator Workshop at the New School for Social Research in New York. She left the faculty in 1949 to establish her own studio in New York in the same year.

Combining what she had learned from the Yiddish theatre, the Group Theatre, Broadway, Hollywood, and Constantin Stanislavski, Stella created the Stella Adler Theatre Studio, later renamed the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting and more recently the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, where she taught acting for many decades, and in 1985, she opened the Stella Adler Academy and Theatre in Los Angeles.

The studio offered courses in principles of acting, voice and speech, Shakespeare, movement, and makeup, as well as workshops in play analysis, character, scene preparation, and acting styles. Onstage experience was acquired by performances of scenes and plays before an invited audience. Among her early students were Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Warren Beatty, Elaine Stritch, Mario Van Peebles, Harvey Keitel, and Candice Bergen.

The Adler technique

"Growth as an actor and growth as a human being are synonymous." -Stella Adler Become one with the character

Description

The Stella Adler Studio of Acting, in New York City, was founded in 1949 by Stella Adler. In 1969, it became the first professional training school to become affiliated with New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. The studio became a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in 2000. The mission of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting is to create an environment with the purpose of nurturing theatre artists who value humanity, their own and others, as their first and most precious priority while providing art and education to the greater community.

The scope of the studio's current activities can be summarized in these categories:

  • Professional actor training, the core activity of the atudio and available to both adults and teenagers (about 500 per year) through separate conservatory programs in full-time, part-time and summer programs and also presents lectures, poetry readings, jazz, classical music, theater, and dance theater events
  • The Stella Adler Outreach Division provides free training to low-income, inner-city teenagers (about 300 per year).
  • The Harold Clurman Art Series presents cultural events that are free and open to the public.
  • Stella’s daughter Ellen is the studio’s executive chairperson. Tom Oppenheim, grandson of Stella Adler, is the artistic director and president.

    The Stella Adler Studio of Acting New York City's official West Coast branch is the Art of Acting Studio Los Angeles, named after Stella Adler's most famous book. The Stella Adler Studio of Acting is not affiliated with the Stella Adler Academy in Los Angeles.

    The Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theatre

    Stella’s long history with Hollywood meant she had close ties and strong connections in the Los Angeles area. She taught for many years at various locations in Los Angeles, and longtime friend and protégé Joanne Linville and she eventually opened the doors to the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Argyle. Some of the notable people who have passed through the Hollywood conservatory include Nick Nolte, Salma Hayek, Eric Stoltz, Deidre Hall, Sean Astin, John Charles Jopson, John Ritter, Cybill Shepherd, Michael Richards, Benicio del Toro, and Mark Ruffalo.

    Protégés Joanne Linville and Irene Gilbert persuaded Stella Adler to open the academy in 1985 in Los Angeles. Together, Gilbert and Linville are considered the school's cofounders, with Adler granting them permission to use her name. Gilbert remained the director of the school for 20 years.

    The original school was located in a small theater at Hollywood Boulevard and Argyle Avenue. A fire forced the temporary closure of the school in 1991. The building was threatened with demolition to make way for a proposed subway line at the time of Adler's death in 1992. In 1994, Irene Gilbert reopened the school's present location at 6773 Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. It was renamed the Stella Adler Academy of Acting, and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2010. The historic location housed the famous Embassy Club in the 1930s.

    The school is an acting studio offering extensive training for actors in theatre, film, and television. The facility houses the not-for-profit Stella Adler Theatre, the Irene Gilbert Theatre, The Studio C Theatre, classrooms, dance studio, music studio, library, dressing rooms, video and equipment room, scene shop, and administrative offices, all dedicated to teaching Stella's technique.

    Linville continues to teach at the academy as the lead instructor for the last 25 years. Irene Gilbert died in 2011.

    In 2010, alumni of the school formed the Stella Adler Los Angeles Theatre Collective.

    Although the school still uses the Stella Adler name, it is not affiliated with the New York studio. The Art of Acting Studio is the official West Coast branch of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, both having Tom Oppenheim, Adler's grandson, serving as CEO and artistic director.

    References

    Stella Adler Studio of Acting Wikipedia