Acting: The First Six Lessons

“Under their apparent simplicity and light-heartedness, [the lessons are] profound and to the point. Both beginners and established actors, who take their work seriously, will find stimulation in this book.” — Sir Alec Guinness


Boleslavsky’s The First Six Lessons, “in dialogue form, stand alone in their field. Gaily as they are told, there is not a word in any of them that is not seriously to the point, that is not calculated, out of long years of work and study as an actor and as a director in the professional and in the art theatre, to help a young actor on his way. They actually select his tools for him and show him how to use them. And that is a grateful task. For while an actor’s tools are all within his own body and mind and spirit, they are by their very nearness harder to isolate and put to special use than tools of wood and iron. Concentration and observation, experience and memory, movement and poise, creation and projection—an actor must make them all the servants of his talent.”—E.J.R. Isaacs