Acting techniques taught in LA: Meisner, Stanislavski, Uta Hagen, Stella Adler and more

Acting class listings mix two kinds of labels. A technique is an approach to the actor's work, usually named after the teacher who developed it: Meisner, Stanislavski, Uta Hagen, Stella Adler, Strasberg's Method, Michael Chekhov, Chubbuck. A class type is a format: scene study, on-camera, audition technique, cold reading, improv. A scene study class can be taught through any technique, and many LA teachers combine several.

So when a studio says it teaches "Meisner-based scene study", the technique tells you how the teacher will ask you to work, and the class type tells you what you will do in the room. Both matter when you compare schools. This guide covers the techniques. For formats, see the guides to on-camera and audition classes and starting improv.

The background for each technique comes from the institution most closely tied to it, or from a reference work, and is kept short on purpose. The count under each technique is live: it is the number of LA schools in Arlo's directory whose own website names that technique, with links to each school's Arlo profile. A school can name more than one technique, and naming a technique is the school's claim, not Arlo's assessment of how well it is taught.

Sanford Meisner developed his technique at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, a school that opened in 1928. He joined its faculty in 1935 and was head of the acting program by 1940. The training puts the actor's attention on the scene partner and on responding truthfully within imaginary circumstances. The Playhouse lists repetition, improvisation, independent activities and scene work among the exercises.

Because the exercises build on each other, Meisner programs may run as a sequence. Before you enroll, ask when a new group starts and whether you can join partway through.

Konstantin Stanislavsky (also spelled Stanislavski) and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko founded the Moscow Art Theater in 1898, and Stanislavsky developed his system of actor training there. Several of the American techniques below trace a direct line to him: Stella Adler, for one, studied with him in Paris.

A class that names Stanislavski may teach the foundations of his system or combine it with other approaches. Ask how much of the class is technique work and how much is scene work.

Uta Hagen taught for more than fifty years at HB Studio in New York, which her husband Herbert Berghof founded in 1945. HB Studio calls her book "Respect for Acting" one of her best-selling texts and describes her object exercises as her most important contribution to actor training.

If a class names Hagen, ask whether it works through the object exercises or applies her ideas in scene study.

Stella Adler studied with Stanislavsky in Paris and opened her own studio in New York in 1949, now the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, according to the Stella Adler Center for the Arts. The studio's own course description teaches her principles of action, circumstance and justification, all rooted in the imagination.

Ask whether a class is a technique course or scene study taught with Adler principles.

"The Method" usually means the approach taught by Lee Strasberg. According to the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, the Actors Studio was created in 1947 by Elia Kazan and Robert Lewis, the Institute was founded in 1969, and Strasberg's exercises center on affective memory: sense memory and emotional memory.

Not every school that says "method" means Strasberg's Method; several LA teachers name their own method after themselves. Arlo counts a school here only when it names Strasberg or "Method acting".

Michael Chekhov, born in Russia in 1891, was Anton Chekhov's nephew and a pupil of Stanislavsky, according to Michael Chekhov Canada. The Michael Chekhov Association describes the technique as psycho-physical: it uses movement and imagination to transform the actor. Its tools include the psychological gesture.

Ivana Chubbuck created the Chubbuck Technique and founded the Ivana Chubbuck Studio. The studio describes the technique as using emotions to drive a goal rather than treating emotion as the end result. Her book "The Power of the Actor" lays out the approach.

Mary Overlie created the Six Viewpoints. According to SITI Company, Anne Bogart learned it while working with Overlie at NYU, and Bogart and SITI then developed their own way of teaching it. It has been part of the core curriculum of NYU's Experimental Theater Wing since 1978, according to The Six Viewpoints.

The Alexander Technique is not an acting technique but a body-use method many actors study alongside one. The American Society for the Alexander Technique describes it as an educational method, in use for more than 100 years, that helps people change habits of posture and unlearn habitual tension. It says actors, singers, dancers and musicians use it for breathing, voice and precise movement.

Practical Aesthetics was developed by David Mamet and William H. Macy in the early 1980s while they taught NYU students who went on to form the Atlantic Theater Company, according to a BroadwayWorld introduction from the Atlantic Acting School. It pairs a four-question script analysis with moment-to-moment work based on Meisner's repetition.

There is no best technique, and working actors often train in more than one. A more useful question is which approach gives you something you can use right now. A few rules of thumb:

• If you freeze or over-plan, a partner-focused approach such as Meisner work may suit you.
• If you want a toolkit for breaking down a script, look for classes that emphasize text analysis, such as Stanislavski-based, Adler-based or Practical Aesthetics training.
• If you feel stiff or vocally tight, a body-based class (Alexander Technique, Chekhov work, Viewpoints) can complement your main class.
• If you mostly need bookings, a technique class will help over time, but an on-camera or audition class is the more direct route.

Whatever you choose, audit first. Two teachers who name the same technique can run very different rooms, and the teacher matters more than the label. The audit guide lists every LA school that states an audit policy, and How to choose an acting class covers the questions to ask.