Stanislavski’s system in musical theatre actor training: anomalies of acting song

Abstract

The principles underpinning current acting approaches in musical theatre are primarily based on, and indebted to, Stanislavski’s acting ‘System’. Though the musical theatre acting literature fails to formally explain the modes of appropriation or varying legacies of Stanislavski’s tenets (a task I will briefly cover), the pervasive reception given aspects of his systematic preparations may rest, in part, on the apparent logic of a methodology that enables actors, during the process of preparing for a role, to approach a song and its lyrics as though they would a play and its spoken text. Moreover the holistic way Stanislavski perceived the actor’s process (particularly in the latter part of ..