Bibliography Database
Robert Lewis – China Container House – Spatial Grid Structure Manufacturer by jekky
Early years Robert Bobby Lewis was born in Brooklyn in 1909 to a middle class working family Encouraged in the arts by his mother a former contralto Lewis acquired an early and lifelong interest in music particularly opera He studied cello and piano as a child but these eventually gave way to his love of acting In 1929 he joined Eva Le Gallienne s Civic Repertory Theatre in New York City His musical background proved invaluable later when he became a director of operas and filmed musicals in Hollywood The Group Theatre In 1931 Lewis became one of the 28 original and youngest members of New York s revolutionary Group Theatre Formed by Harold Clurman Lee Strasberg and producer Cheryl Crawford The Group was an ensemble of passionate young actors directors and writers who came together to explore the inner processes of theatre craft Lewis and other members of the Group such as Stella Adler and Elia Kazan were proponents of a new form of acting based on the techniques of Russian director Constantin Stanislavski They believed the Stanislavski System first taught in America in the 1920s by former members of the Moscow Art Theatre Richard Boleslavski and Maria Ouspenskaya at the American Theatre Laboratory where Clurman and Strasberg had studied resulted in a more truthful more believable and therefore more powerful stage performance than could be accomplished with more seemingly external techniques common at that time Lewis appeared in several original Group Theatre productions in the 1930s including Sidney Kingsley s Pulitzer Prize winning Men in White and Clifford Odets plays Waiting for Lefty Awake and Sing Paradise Lost and Golden Boy As in any artistic endeavor differences in translation and emphasis between the Russian Stanislavski System and what eventually came to be known as The Method were debated vigorously in the Group In the summer of 1934 Stella Adler returned from a trip to Paris where she had worked privately with Stanislavski and directly challenged Lee Strasberg s approach deepening tensions which led to Strasberg s departure from the Group in 1937 In later years Lewis held that Strasberg s Method while valid in its particulars was a misrepresentation of Stanislavski because it emphasized only some parts of Stanislavski s theory See Method Or Madness below Despite the Group s success internal disagreements the lure of Hollywood and financial issues began to take a toll and by late 1936 production was suspended Officially released from Group obligations many of the members including Lewis and Group founder Harold Clurman went off to join other Group members already in Hollywood In April 1937 Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford resigned as directors of the Group A year later however Robert Lewis and Elia Kazan returned to New York to restart Group workshops and The Group Theatre Studio resumed with fifty actors chosen from four hundred who auditioned Lewis Kazan and Sanford Meisner were the principle teachers That same year Harold Clurman returned from Hollywood to stage the Group s production of Clifford Odets Golden Boy which became its most successful play Robert Lewis was cast as Roxy Gottlieb the prizefight promoter Lewis later maintained that he had been miscast in the original production though he assumed a more satisfying role as director of his own successful production of Golden Boy at the St James Theatre in London in 1938 While in London Lewis studied with Michael Chekov an actor whose work he admired and whom Stanislavski considered one of the foremost interpreters of his theories At Chekov s studio in Devonshire at Dartington Hall Lewis further shaped his understanding of Stanislavski s techniques or method as it was informally known in America The following year Lewis made his Broadway directorial debut with a critically successful production of William Saroyan s My Heart s in the Highlands 1939 Hollywood As did other Group members like Franchot Tone Clifford Odets Stella Adler Elia Kazan and Harold Clurman Lewis found the need to sin in Hollywood as Odets called it irresistible In his book Slings and Arrows Theater in My Life Lewis complains that being short and round he reluctantly had to accept that as an actor he fell into the character rather than the leading man category True enough after moving to Los Angeles in 1940 he became known in Hollywood for his ability to transform himself into memorable screen characters particularly characters of different nationalities He played German officers such as Colonel Pirosh in Paris After Dark FOX 1943 opposite George Sanders and Sergeant Schmidt in Son of Lassie MGM 1945 starring Peter Lawford Donald Crisp and June Lockhart He became French collaborationist Maurice Bonnard in Tonight We Raid Calais FOX 1943 and the villainous Japanese Colonel Sato in Dragon Seed MGM 1944 starring Katharine Hepburn A highlight of his Hollywood character actor career came when he played Frenchman Maurice Bottello opposite his friend Charles Chaplin in Chaplin s controversial film Monsieur Verdoux 1947 Though he went on to perform in and co direct with Vincente Minnelli musicals like Ziegfeld Follies MGM 1946 starring Fred Astaire and he directed the 1956 version of Anything Goes Paramount starring Bing Crosby and Donald O Connor Lewis later reminisced that he felt bored underused and flustered in Hollywood and struggled for some years to get out of his contract at MGM so he could return to Broadway Robert Lewis did return to New York in 1947 to direct his first big commercial success on Broadway Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe s whimsical musical play Brigadoon Even after becoming a successful director Lewis apparently preferred Broadway to Hollywood He turned down an offer to direct the film My Fair Lady choosing instead to remain in New York to stage a play with Cheryl Crawford The Actors Studio In 1947 Lewis co founded The Actors Studio a professional actors workshop with former Group members director Elia Kazan and producer Cheryl Crawford The Actors Studio was an attempt to recapture the close ensemble nature of the Group and to evolve and refine the methods first explored by the Group in the 1930s The first year about fifty young actors were invited to join Lewis taught classes for advanced members with emphasis on inner action or intention while Kazan who preferred to work with the younger actors held forth on technique exercises such as sensory recall imagination and improvisation The Actors Studio which is still active today became one of the leading centers for the Stanislavski System or Method of dramatic training producing some of the most influential performers in American theatre and film in the later half of the Twentieth Century In the first year alone Robert Lewis group meeting three times a week consisted of Marlon Brando Montgomery Clift Mildred Dunnock Jerome Robbins Herbert Berghof Tom Ewell John Forsythe Kevin McCarthy Karl Malden E G Marshall Patricia Neal Beatrice Straight and David Wayne to name a few Lewis left The Actors Studio over differences with Kazan and Crawford involving the production of a play later resolved and a desire to concentrate on his burgeoning directorial career on Broadway Indeed 1947 saw the opening of his first big commercial Broadway hit Alan Jay Lerner s Brigadoon After Lewis departure Lee Strasberg who Lewis later differed with over certain particulars of The Method As did otherstella Adler personally met with Stanislavski in Paris and learned that he had discarded his previous technique of sense memory or affective memory as unworkable and counterproductive Sanford Meisner Bobby Lewis and Elia Kazan joined Stella Adler in turning their backs on the technique preferring instead to focus on the use of the imagination to stimulate emotion Lee Strasberg however continued to believe in the efficacy of sense memory and he taught the technique until his death was asked to join the studio Despite any such differences The Actors Studio flourished under Strasberg s leadership and he became Artistic Director several years later a position he maintained until his death Broadway With the critical and commercial success of Brigadoon 1947 Robert Lewis was on his way to becoming one of the Great White Way s most respected directors Among the plays directed by Robert Lewis were My Hearts in the Highlands 1939 by William Saroyan Brigadoon 1947 by Alan Jay Lerner Regina 1949 The Happy Time 1950 An Enemy of the People 1950 The Grass Harp 1952 The Teahouse of the August Moon 1953 Tony winner for Best Musical and New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Director Witness for the Prosecution 1954 from Agatha Christie Mister Johnson 1956 Jamaica 1957 The Hidden River 1957 Handful of Fire 1958 Chri 1959 Kwamina 1961 Foxy 1964 Traveller Without Luggage 1964 On a Clear Day You Can See Forever 1965 and Harold and Maude 1980 Method Or Madness By the 1950s Stanislavski s ideas on acting technique had become very popular in America In his memoirs Lewis notes that widespread adoption had also fostered widespread confusion and misinformation both among its defenders and its detractors There were many different proponents and many different interpretations some successful and some less so all lumped together under the popular moniker of The Method On the stage of the Playhouse Theatre in New York City at 11 30 p m on the evening of Monday April 15 1957 Robert Lewis presented the first of eight lectures to professional actors directors and playwrights on the subject of what exactly Method acting is and is not There were some 5 000 written applications to attend the lectures In an attempt to clear the air surrounding Method acting one of Lewis points revolved around the idea that there are many facets of an actor s preparation and Stanislavski intended that the actor prepare internally and externally rather than relying exclusively or too heavily upon internal techniques such as affective memory Opponents of Method acting complained of a generation of mumblers whose acting conveyed the truth of the actor but not necessarily the truth of the character on the stage Lewis felt that such performances were the result of an unfortunate misinterpretation of Stanislavski s ideas Mr Lewis declared throughout his career in fact that Method actors who simply spoke stage dialogue truthfully exactly as they would in life were discouraged from playing Shakespeare or other classical writers because these author s plays required a stylized method of speaking In his lectures Lewis maintained that an actor must learn to use his voice properly and master formal ways of speaking such as blank verse if he she is to succeed in Shakespeare However there have been instances when Method actors did master Shakespeare Indeed one of Lewis s students and one of the actors most often associated with the Method Marlon Brando received rave notices and an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Mark Antony in the MGM version of Julius Caesar opposite the great Shakespearian actor John Gielgud However Brando simply did not simply say his lines cold turkey so to speak he trained for the role by carefully listening to recordings of the great Shakespearean actor John Barrymore and by being coached by Gielgud Barrymore and Gielgud were two actors whose styles were the very antithesis of Method acting More recently Al Pacino another Method actor received outstanding reviews for his portrayal of Shylock in the 2004 film version of Shakespeare s The Merchant of Venice Lewis s lectures on Method acting later became the basis of his first book Method Or Madness Samuel French 1958 Yale School of Drama In addition to teaching at The Group Theatre The Actors Studio his own Robert Lewis Theatre Workshop and the Lincoln Center Training Program Lewis was a popular lecturer at many colleges and universities throughout the country for the better part of his career He returned to the Yale School of Drama often for long and short stints depending on his directing schedule and eventually became Chairman of the Yale Acting and Directing departments in the 1970s under Dean Robert Brustein During his tenure at Yale Lewis helped shape the careers of many successful actors such as Meryl Streep He retired from Yale in 1976 Later Years After Method or Madness Robert Lewis wrote two other books on acting Advice to the Players Harper amp Row 1980 an actors handbook and Slings and Arrows Theater in My Life Stein and Day 1984 a memoir Mr Lewis remained active in theater in the 1980s and continued to teach a new generation of actors and directors through his Robert Lewis Theatre Workshop and at Rice University in 1981 82 He also served as the first Artistic Director at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts outside Washington DC He was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1991 In that same year Kent State University established the annual Robert Lewis Lifetime Achievement medal in his honor Mr Lewis died of heart failure on November 23 1997 in New York City at the age of 88 Bibliography Method Or Madness 1958 Samuel French ISBN 0 5736 9033 2 Advice To The Players 1980 Stein and Day ISBN 1 55936 003 8 Slings And Arrows Theater In My Life 1984 Harper amp Row ISBN 1 5578 3244 7 References Slings and Arrows Lewis memoir http www tcm com tcmdb title jsp stid 79974 amp category Articles External links Robert Lewis at the Internet Movie Database Robert Lewis at the Internet Broadway Database Actors Studio history Categories 1909 births 1997 deaths American actors American film actors American stage actors Acting theorists People from Brooklyn Deaths from cardiovascular disease People from New York City
About the Author
The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as China Container House , Spatial Grid Structure Manufacturer, and more. For more , please visit steel structures suppliers today!
OpenOffice Bibliography Tutorial – Part 2 – The Bibliography Database
|
|
Niles Endnote 8 for Students Only [Old Version] $19.99 … |
|
|
Niles Endnote 8.0 Windows $299.95 … |
|
|
Niles Endnote 8.0 Upgrade $145.95 … |
|
|
EndNote 7.0 Student (Mac) … |
|
|
ResearchSoft EndNote 9 [Old Version] $329.95 With EndNote 9, completing your research is easier and faster. Millions of researchers, scholarly writers, students, and librarians use EndNote to search online bibliographic databases. The software also organizes their references and images, and creates bibliographies and figure lists instantly. Instead of spending hours typing bibliographies, or using index cards to organize their references, do… |
|
|
Security in Computing, 4th Edition $54.99 The New State-of-the-Art in Information Security: Now Covers the Economics of Cyber Security and the Intersection of Privacy and Information Security For years, IT and security professionals and students have turned to Security in Computing as the definitive guide to information about computer security attacks and countermeasures. In their new fourth edition, Charles P. Pfleeger and Shari Lawren… |
|
|
Software Test Automation $38.12 You can’t just buy an automated testing tool and expect to improve your organization’s testing process without some real effort, at least that is what the authors of Software Test Automation argue. Written for any test manager or engineer, this practical-minded guide shows the right way to automate testing to bring down costs and improve overall software quality. Most importantly, this book … |
|
|
PHP and MySQL by Example $25.99 Quickly master dynamic, database-driven Web development—no experience necessary!Even if you’re completely new to PHP, MySQL, and Web database development, this book will guide you through every step of building powerful, database-driven, dynamic Web sites. Direct from the world’s top scripting instructor, Ellie Quigley, PHP and MySQL by Example illuminates every concept with tested code exam… |
January 14, 2012 8:35 pm 
Subscribe