Customer Reviews

The Sanford Meisner Approach: Workbook Four, Playing the Part

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As both a professional actor and an acting instructor I cannot recommend Larry's "The Sanford Meisner Approach Workbook" series highly enough. Having studied and applied the Meisner technique as an actor for 14 years and having taught it now for 4 I find Larry's series to be the most straightforward and accessible breakdown of Sandy's technique. I teach acting in the BFA program at Central Washington University in Ellensburg WA and we currently offer a total of 50 weeks of Meisner training over a two year period. Larry's "Workbook One" is one of the required texts in the first year and the remaining three books in the series are required in the second year. I, and my students, have found that their experience is enhanced by reading the chapters, or sessions, in the book that correspond to the work we are doing in class. I have seen their connection to their others, their art, their community and themselves strengthen and deepen as we work on this technique and the exercises together. As an actor and/or an acting teacher you cannot go wrong with The Meisner Technique and you cannot go wrong with Larry Silverberg's "The Sanford Meisner Approach" series. I highly recommend it!

I have been a professional actor for 30 years. About fifteen years ago I was verylucky. I picked up Larry Siverberg's first book on the Sanford Meisner approach. It changed my life as an actor, and as a teacher. I know of no finer book on acting, and I have read a lot of them. It is the clearest, the most step by step, and the most inspirational book on true acting that has ever been written. This also holds for the other three books in his series. Did reading his book make me a better actor over night? Of course not. And Larry Silverberg never said that it would. Let me repeat that - he never said that it would! So what did it do? It opened a path that I could begin to follow - a long and very difficult path, but a wonderous and life changing journey. It showed me where my training was lacking, and what real actor training could be. It inspired me and gave me a map to use to begin exploring with fellow actors the craft of acting. And it lead me to seek out new teachers. I am a better actor because of this book.
I have used Larry Silverber's books in many university acting and directing classes. When I started using his first volume, teaching became fun and exciting again. I have seen his approach work with so many students, and it is miraculous. I can not recomend his books highly enough as either an introduction to what true acting can be, or as the beginning of a wonderful journey.

I have a MFA in acting from the University of Central Florida, and I teach acting at Christian Brothers University in Memphis Tennessee. I studied with Larry Silverberg for two summers. He is as remarkable a teacher as he is a writer. Even though one might think it is extremely difficult to explain the Meisner technique in a book, Larry has accomplished that. Like many, I believe you need to study acting in a class to learn the craft, but these series of books are a rare exception. Not only do they teach the technique using a step by step process which allows the actor to really understand what s/he is doing, but they reveal the essence of the Meisner approach which is to specify a role until it has ULTIMATE MEANING for YOU!

Also, if you didn't know by now from reading the other reviews, "Meisner gave Larry and Smith & Kraus written permission to publish these books.

AS A fILM DIRECTOR WITH 3 FEATURE LENGHT FILMS AND INTERNATIOANAL AWARDS SUCH AS A SILVER BEAR IN BERLIN- I GRANT AND PRAISE NOT ONLY THIS
BOOK - # 04 BUT ALL OTHERS WRITTEN BY THE SAME AUTHOR PROF. LARRY SILVERBERG . THESE BOOKS ARE THE BEST BOOKS ON ACTING FOR ACTORS AND TEACHERS.
ANY ONE WHO GET HIS BOOKS ON THE MEISNER APPROACH IS MORE THAN LUCKY .THEY WILL GET THE BEST HELP FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING THE MEISNER APPROACH.

I have personally worked with Larry Silverberg, and before that used his books both to learn and teach the Meisner Technique. I have an MFA in Acting, work professionally as an actress, and teach acting as well, and I have tried many approaches to acting, only to keep coming back to Larry's workbooks. These books are clear, succinct, and incredibly easy to work with, and they include many examples for clarification. Larry is the most nurturing acting teacher, and I cannot recommend him highly enough.

As a teacher and devoted reader of all the Silverberg books on the Meisner Technique, this book reminds me of everything vital and essential in the craft of acting. I recently reviewed Silverberg's newest book "Meisner for Teens" here on Amazon and I called it one of the "Most important books ever written for actors of any age," so I went back and re-read my favorite of his Meisner Workbooks, Volume Four...

This is truly the book that takes all the lessons he has shared in the first three workbooks and reveals the most crucial concepts of the Meisner Technique - that acting is not emoting, but rather, it is a passionate struggle to "do something" crucial and imperative. AND, that if there is any moment where the actor is not involved in this personal struggle on stage or in front of the camera, then he or she is no longer acting. These are Silverberg's words and, in my own experience as an educator, they are the most missing elements in the vast majority of acting classes.

As a teaching artist, these lessons, from the time I first read Silverberg's books, have truly shifted and transformed the whole course of my adult life. My performances became richer, truer and more deeply personal. And my teaching, which I thought was effective before, took on a whole new sense of urgency and vitality which my students have commented on many, many times.

It is hard for me to describe in words the gifts of these books, these meticulous step-by-step workbooks. I only wish that they were required reading for anyone who has the desire to enter the arena of theatre arts at any level!

I studied Meisner for three years, and it is by far the most practical, reliable, learnable technique out there. I also teach, and find that the technique gets students competent quickly, and in a year's time, very good. In my experience, after a year or two, most every student is better than the actors you see in prime time TV and many are up there with major film stars, if not better. I am aware of no other technique that delivers these kinds of results.

I deeply appreciate Silverberg's series because it lays out the Meisner excercises in a fun way without dumbing them down (there's not a lot TO dumb down, the technique, though it requires practice, really is simple). My copies are dog-eared and marked with notes. They're acting bibles. You DO need to find a Meisner class, and don't think you can do a 4-week workshop or some other gimmick and think you're trained. But until you can get to or while you're in class, these books are ideal for reference, clarification, and reinforcement.

If you're still on the fence, please know that Meisner students get work. For working actors, there is no better technique for cold-readings and monologues. The technique also makes actors easy to direct, as it allows them to quickly translate cold instructions into fresh emotional circumstances without having to get all heady about it, and without a lot of rehearsal. There isn't enough being written about the technique, in my opinion. Silverberg's contribution is seminal. Please purchase the entire series of 4 workbooks. You will not regret it.

Silverberg's Meisner workbook series is a jewel for acting teachers and students alike! Filled with a step-by-step approach and essential exercises that allow actors to genuinely understand what it means to "live truthfully under imaginary circumstances" onstage, Silverberg's books are direct and practical, yet also astoundingly inspirational. As a university acting professor, the artistic growth that I have witnessed in my students as a result of this material is phenomenal. Do yourself a favor and read this series. I cannot recommend this work highly enough!

I'm not a huge fan of Meisner's approach... As a director, I note that when actors are devout followers of his methods, they tend to gravitate toward anger in their acting. It makes sense- he's all about the visceral response. And anger "feels" good when you're acting--- feels like you're really doing something. Unfortunately, I think there's a danger of getting so involved with how you feel, that you forget that you're really up there to tell a story to the audience above all else.
That being said, some of the exercises here are great if you're an actor feeling stuck and unemotional; or if you're feeling unconnected from your character. As a director, I certainly can use some of his exercises to promote size in the more timid actors and to get ensembles to gel emotionally.
Worth having, but balance it with some more analytical pieces.

So sad, so sad really. Doesn't everyone realize that Larry Silverberg makes all this up (well most of it and certainly in this particular workbook are contained exercises and guidance that Meisner wouldn't have recognized)! Larry Silverberg makes up the exercises, Larry Silverberg makes up students succeeding at his made up exercises and then Larry Silverberg makes up more dialogue of students telling him how right he is about his made up exercises and then Larry Silverberg keeps telling anyone that listens how grateful he is to Sanford Meisner for giving him all of this TRUTH: the truth of Meisner's exercises, the truth of Meisner's principles, and ad infinitum. Larry Silverberg keeps saying over and over again how grateful he is to Sanford Meisner perhaps to compensate for one very important fact: Meisner had nothing to do with Larry Silverberg's workbooks. He did REJECT them and there are anecdotes about what he said about them (nothing nice). Larry Silverberg was one student at the Neighborhood Playhouse among many. He had no special relationship with Sanford Meisner nor was Larry Silverberg ever taught to teach this work by Meisner.

Don't get me wrong. Larry Silverberg has every right to teach what ever he wants to teach.
What is unsettling is how much he associates himself with Sanford Meisner and makes claims that he is teaching what Meisner taught. Even more unsettling is that these Larry Silverberg books have made their way to some university classes. One would have thought that there might have been more due diligence from the theatre program department about the veracity of Larry Silverberg's claims about what he knows about Meisner and the truth of what is contained in these books.

Enjoy the review below.

As a long ago graduate of a MFA acting program, a former university professor and an acting teacher who taught here in New York City for many years and who learned to teach the so-called "Meisner" work from one of the first generation Meisner teachers I can pretty much sympathize with those people who have struggled to make a living teaching acting. I imagine that those people looking to legitimately enhance their resumes may be drawn to get a acting teacher certification for instance, a rather recent development by the way and unfortunately certainly no guarantee of teaching expertise. Larry Silverberg teaches such a teaching certification program and I continue to wonder what exact teaching experience Mr. Silverberg feels he has that allows him to "certify" especially since nothing in his biography reveals where he may have taught a number of typical 2 year Meisner programs over the length of a few years. I have found evidence that Mr. Silverberg taught at The School for Television and Film in 1999 but for how long I don't know. That question aside for a moment he is a mighty cheerleader of the work and an all around nice man but that doesn't mean that he is correct in maintaining that you can learn this work from a book. You can't and no serious teacher of any art would maintain such a position. In these books, Larry Silverberg makes claims that are both ridiculous and absurd. Could an exercise "workbook" promise a student of singing the ability of vocal production, vocal support, and the smooth facility to hit all the notes with pure unadulterated tone. Hardly. Moreover would anyone serious about their vocal training search out someone as inexperienced as they might be and then ask them to work with them, to observe and make "helpful" comments to them as they practiced their essential singing skills. Absolutely not. Yet Mr. Silverberg expects actors to learn in this manner. Mr. Silverberg makes the outrageous claim that in the book "the work we do together will lead you to acting with deep personal meaning, a wonderful simplicity (so rare in the theatre) and to a level of working where technique disappears and what remains is you in your acting." Mr. Silverberg promises you what only talent can bring you and years of training and work in the profession. Mr. Silverberg's books are filled through and through with these kinds of ridiculous and completely unsupported claims. By the way the classic formulation of what is supposed to "remain" is NOT "you in your acting" but the "actor in you." I feel strongly about rejecting Mr. Silverberg's books because acting is very difficult to do much less become successful in. It seems that educators should give every chance to a student to succeed, not steer them in the wrong direction by actually having them believe what Mr. Silverberg has said this book will do. Mr. Silverberg seems more interested in selling his Human Potential Movement than seriously taking on the task of teaching acting. Just going around teaching weekend or 4 week (spread out over two years) workshop/seminars from which we have videos of "actors" and "professors" transformed and saying things like their life has been changed and then breathlessly praising Mr. Silverberg doesn't sound like the results of good training of how to conduct classes in the Meisner Technique. Finally there is no evidence that what the books says it can do for a student it will do. Meisner himself rejected this workbook and never taught in the way that Silverberg is trying to teach you in this book. As a side note please understand that the book reviewers who reviewed this book were not experts (much less acting teacher) with this method so how can we take their word about the books usefulness or if it had anything to do with Meisner.