About the Book:

A dynamic, inventive and articulate stage director and drama teacher presents a program of study, preparatory exercises and techniques for actors.

Robert Lewis was one of the most renowned acting teachers of the 21st century. In his more than 60 years of teaching – at the influential Yale School of Drama, at the Actors Studio, at the Lincoln Center Repertory Company and at his own Robert Lewis Theater Workshop – his students his students included Marlon Brando, Anne Bancroft, Jerome Robbins, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Patricia Neal, Sigourney Weaver, Faye Dunaway, Tom Ewell, E.G. Marshall, John Forsythe, Sidney Lumet, Karl Malden, and Frank Langella, Henry Winkler, and Meryl Streep.

He was an early disciple of the Stanislavski System, or "method" of acting developed earlier in the century by Constantin Stanislavski, the Russian actor and director, that combined an emotional truth – a significant moment from the actor's past relived in performance – with technique. But Robert Lewis always provided his students with his own personal take on Stanislavsky, reached through his own use of it as an actor, director, and teacher in his acting studio, in rehearsals, and in productions. His book Advice to the Players is practical program of study for the actor. The areas covered include: relaxation, body work, concentration, imagination, sensory perception, improvisation, and emotion.

The book includes an introduction by the influential and respected theatre director and drama critic Harold Clurman. (Any actor who doesn't know who Harold Clurman was should look him up.)

What people say:

"...shines with clarity ... I shall use it and ask everyone I know to use it." — Stella Adler

"I think it's the best book on the subject of how to act since Lewis’s Method or Madness." — Maureen Stapleton

"The best theatre book I read this year. The remarkable thing is its lack of bunk. Actors and watchers of actors will find it a book to mark up and read again." — Los Angeles Times

About the Author:

Robert "Bobby" Lewis (1909-1997) was an American actor, drama teacher, and theatre director. Born in New York City, he studied cello at the Juilliard School of Music before deciding he would rather be an actor. He made his first appearance on stage with the Civic Repertory Theatre in 1929, and two years later joined the Group Theatre Acting Company, noted for its adherence to the acting theories of Stanislavski. He was a founder of the legendary Actors' Studio in New York City and a successful director of Broadway plays and musicals. He taught (1941-76) at the Yale School of Drama and later established his own theatre workshop in New York City.

Harold Clurman (1901-1980) was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He studied directing at the American Laboratory Theater in New York. His life in the theatre extended from acting with the Theatre Guild in the 1920s, through his creation and direction of New York City's Group Theatre in the 1930s, to a distinguished post-war career as free-lance director, highly respected theatre critic – first for the New Republic (1948-52), then for The Nation (1953-1980) – and also theatre historian and university teacher.