Sanford Meisner

Link to the Matthew Corozine Studio in Times Square

As a teacher of the Sanford Meisner Technique, part of the process of studying the craft of acting requires the actor to write a personal monologue from one’s life.  The point of the exercise is to write something difficult to say that you wouldn’t tell just anyone.  The story must be true and from your point-of-view.  Within the exercise the actor can be as creative as they like, telling the story through different stages of their lives, as a letter, however they like, so long as the feelings and stories expressed are true.  One of the reasons for doing the exercise is to allow the actor to deliver a piece that requires no research or imagined emotional life.  The piece already has a built in point-of-view and feeling.  The actor’s job is to write the piece and then fully memorize and deliver the piece at least 3 different times to the class.  Traditionally in the Meisner Technique the activity is tackled at some point at the end of the actor’s first year of training.  At the studio I work, Matthew Corozine Studio in Times Square, Artistic Director Matthew Corozine has the actors do the assignment at the start of the training process. The purpose is to set the foundation for the actor that “acting” mostly requires no acting at all, and that the emphasis on good acting is being truthful and fully expressed.  The emotional life and experience the students face in the course will all be built from truth and reality.  Yet, even though the piece is true, the way in which they express their feelings may be different from how they may have actually expressed them in life, or if at all.  Sanford Meisner’s definition of acting is ” Acting is living and behaving truthfully and fully under imaginary circumstances.”  Though there are no imaginary circumstances in writing the personal monologue activity, the actor is encouraged to “fully express” and “give the piece away” by delivering the story to another person.  Throughout years of teaching this technique we have heard many amazing, sad, tragic, unbelievable, touching, heartbreaking stories—everything from feeling abandoned, to suicide attempts, abortion and rape.   The life writing technique opens actors to truly expressing personal and connected feeling to an audience.  Many of the monologues that the actors write go on to be developed into scenes and in some cases plays based on their experience.