Sanford Meisner

Nick Moseley

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 31 Aug 1905
Died 2 Feb 1997
Activity 1935-1990

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Teacher/ Professor
Theatre Director

Resources

Meisner's Works

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Sanford Meisner was born and bred in New York City, the child of a Hungarian Jewish couple who made their money from selling furs. The young Meisner's decision to become an actor was greeted with bewilderment by his family, who did not regard acting as a suitable profession, and had expected him to work in the clothing industry. Meisner's first engagement was at the Theatre Guild in New York, where he subsequently won a scholarship to study acting.

It was at the Guild that Meisner encountered Lee Strasberg, one of the young theatre workers with whom he was to form the Group Theatre in 1931, an experimental company dedicated to exploring “truthful” acting and ways to achieve it. Many of the founder members of the Group Theatre, including Strasberg, had studied under Richard Boleslavski

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1070 words

Citation: Moseley, Nick. "Sanford Meisner". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 November 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3073, accessed 25 November 2024.]