Konstantin Stanislavsky, orig. Konstantin Sergeyevich Alekseyev, (born Jan. 17, 1863, Moscow, Russia—died Aug. 7, 1938, Moscow), Russian director and actor. From age 14 he acted with his family’s amateur dramatic group, and in 1888 he cofounded a permanent dramatic company. He won praise in 1891 for his first independent production, The Fruits of Enlightenment. In 1898 he and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858–1943) founded the Moscow Art Theatre; that year it restaged Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull to great acclaim. Stanislavsky continued to direct and act in many Russian plays, including Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1899) and The Cherry Orchard (1904). He trained his actors to achieve greater realism by identifying deeply with their characters, a technique that became known as the Stanislavsky method. His company toured Europe and the U.S. (1922–24), where his method influenced the later development of the Group Theatre and the Actors Studio.
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