The school that lives on in Stella Adler's name is described as a "family-owned" business. This traditional acting school, very different and unrelated to the agenda of a school such as ours, apparently attempts to adhere to the teachings of Ms. Adler and her contemporaries.

One of the titans of 20th Century actor training was Stella Adler. She was born in 1905 and died at the age of 87. She was raised in the theater, her mother and father were famed Yiddish theater stars, Sara and Jacob Adler.

Stella Adler first stepped foot on the stage at the age of four in a show called "Broken Hearts," in a production associated with her father. Her earliest study of the craft of acting was through the time-honored tradition of watching and learning from veterans of the stage. At our own school, The Jason Bennett Actor's Workshop, we honor this tradition by having beginners experience the work of seasoned professionals through appropriate collaborations that keep it interesting for both the beginners and the professionals.

Ms. Adler traveled to London at the age of 18 to appear at The Pavillion Theater as Naomi in "Elisa Ben Avia." Her production received rave reviews for the specifity and brilliance of her performance. She stayed in the role for approximately a year, before returning to the United States. Shen then toured many continents appearing in all kinds of plays, speaking in numerous languages.

In 1924, Stella Adler met Harold Clurman, the famed theater director, who would go on to become her second husband. In 1928, Ms. Adler first appeared on Broadway and joined what was called the "American Laboratory," created by former members of The Moscow Art Theater, Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya. The Moscow Art Theater, dedicated to the innovations of Master teachers like Konstantin Stanislavski, believed acting should arise and express far more humanity and "reality" than what had been achieved in the past. One focus was to expand performance beyond mere technical gesture, posing and articulation, such that acting was a deeper and more profound exploration of humanity.

Stella Adler was one of the founding members of The Group Theater in 1931. This historic theater group, co-founded by Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford and Harold Clurman, was responsible for many controversial and important plays (often written by the great playwright, Clifford Odets). The Group Theater toured the United States for about 5 years, before being essentially disbanded because of artistic disagreements among company members. Stella Adler would eventually break apart from the group in 1937 and relocate to Los Angeles.

During the course of her substantial and well-respected performing career, Stella Adler appeared as Sarah Glassman in Adah Menken in "Gold Eagle Guy," "Success Story," Bessie Berger in Odet's "Awake and Sing," and Clara in "Paradise Lost."

After relocating to Los Angeles, Stella Adler spent about six years as an associate producer at MGM. She appeared in movies such as "Love on Toast" and "The Shadow of the Thin Man." She frequently returned to Broadway and London. And her performing and directing resumé was substantial. You can find it throughout the internet.

In around 1934, Stella Adler decided to take a trip to Russia to explore the acting methods and training processes there. On her way, she visited Paris. Legend has it that she coincidentally met Konstantin Stanislavski, who had become an almost mythic "father of acting training" in the Western world. She worked with him for approximately five weeks. Lee Strasberg, it has been reported, never worked with Stanislavski.

Her work with Stanislavski, who was late in his career, led her to conclude the teachings of Lee Strasberg were invalid. Later in life, Stanlislavski's work focused on actors developing methods of "physical action" to tell stories.* Upon returning to New York, she began teaching classes in opposition to Strasberg's work, working with many of the Master teachers and directors of the 20th Century like Elia Kazan, Robert ("Bobby") Lewis and Sanford Meisner.

Lee Strasberg's work focused on the actor fully immersing themselves in each role, using their imaginations and also the totality of their own life experiences -- their memories, emotional life, etc. He developed "sense memory" or "emotional recall," one of the early focuses of Stanislavski's work. When Adler returned from working with Stanislavski, she denounced Strasberg's teaching as being not at all what Stanislavski taught.

Stella Adler believed the study of acting should focus entirely on the training of actor's imagination, voice and body. She taught that one's own life was a useless distraction from the given circumstances and obligations of any play. One point she often made was that, typically, actors had not lived the lives of many kinds of characters -- like Kings, Queens, or Generals -- and so the reliance on one's own life for inspiration was invalid and even destructive. She also received many reports that Lee Strasberg would take actors into very deep personal emotional material, and that this would traumatize them.

Stella Adler and Sandford Meisner were not able to understand how an actor could follow Strasberg's teachings and also "connect" and be present for the other actors and the circumstances of the play. Strasberg rejected this criticism as nonsense and a result of lack of understanding of his work. He denied actors well-trained in his work suffered from any of these problems.

The titanic struggle between the "Strasberg camp" versus the "Adler camp" contributed significantly to the demise of The Group Theater. Nonetheless, the members of The Group Theater went on to train and direct virtually an entire generation of film, television and theater actors and singers in the 20th Century.

In 1949, Stella Adler formally created her own school for actors and singers to experiment, develop their process and perform. Her career lasted until her death, and she was one of the most influential American actors and teachers of her lifetime. She was a prominent member of the "first generation" of American acting teachers and innovators.

Some of her most famous students, this list acquired from Wikipedia and the internet, included Elaine Stritch, Marlon Brando, Mario Van Peebles, Robert De Niro, Betty Buckley, Warren Beatty, Marc Ruffalo, Harvey Keitel, and Candice Bergen.

Her school included Masterclasses by luminaries such as Arthur Laurents, Sir John Gielgud, Boris Aronson, and members of the Moscow Art Theater who traveled from Europe.

Stella Adler's work focused on instructing students to use their imaginations and to read very deeply into each script to determine the writer's intent. She was extremely focused on teaching actors to develop a library of "playable actions." She demanded actors always define and execute clearly stated actions. This narrow focus on mechanical execution of actions, and the belief a side-effect would be filled emotional life, was in part a result of a lack of understanding among many 20th Century acting teachers of that era. They were informed by behavioral psychologists and cultural norms that viewed "character" and "personality" as defined by actions.

A more contemporary view is that our "character" or "personality" is a result of complex interactions between fantasy, memories, and basic emotions such as reward and punishment and much more. At The Jason Bennett Actor's Workshop, our work integrates the latest discoveries from all kinds of creativity research.

In Stella Adler's time, wmotional introspection was, culturally, suspect and seen as narcissistic. These cultural norms grealy influenced teachers like Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner and Michael Chekhov.

Stella Adler insisted on a profound study of classism, cultural norms, costuming, movement and voice. She demanded, sometimes with extremely passionate (sometimes harsh) commentaries, that her students hold themselves to the absolutely highest artistic standards.

Comment from Jason Bennett: It has been commented by many that Stella Adler (and Sanford Meisner) misunderstood Lee Strasberg's work. Strasberg seems to have taught most of what Stella Adler taught. It is tragic they were not able to find a way to collaborate throughout their careers. Modern acting and singing teachers have combined Adler and Strasberg's work with remarkable results. And we go far beyond it.

* Some theater historians state that Stella Adler misunderstood some of her work with Stanislavski, perhaps because of language barriers, such that she concluded he dismissed his early emotional work. But, it has been reported that in an interview later in life, Stanislavski stated that was wrong, and that his early work on emotional recall was vital and required for what he focused on later in his career, when Stella Adler met him.