Stanislavski Studies

Practice, Legacy, and Contemporary Theater

ISSN: 2056-7790 (Print) 2054-4170 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfst20

Improvisations and etudes: an experiment in

Active Analysis

Sharon Marie Carnicke

To cite this article: Sharon Marie Carnicke (2019) Improvisations and etudes: an experiment in
Active Analysis, Stanislavski Studies, 7:1, 17-35, DOI: 10.1080/20567790.2019.1576109

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/20567790.2019.1576109

Published online: 20 Feb 2019.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 83

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rfst20
STANISLAVSKI STUDIES
2019, VOL. 7, NO. 1, 17–35
https://doi.org/10.1080/20567790.2019.1576109

ARTICLE

Improvisations and etudes: an experiment in Active Analysis

Sharon Marie Carnicke

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This essay describes the genesis, process, and results of an experi- Active Analysis;
ment on Active Analysis (as developed by Stanislavsky and his improvisation; etude;
protégé Maria Knebel) that was conducted by the author and practice-based research;
Stanislavsky; Knebel
fifteen actors at the 2018 S Word Symposium at the University of
California, Riverside. The experiment was designed to interrogate
the boundary between “improvisations” and improvisatory
“etudes,” which lie at the heart of Stanislavsky’s last, most innova-
tive rehearsal technique. The experimental design juxtaposed
improvisations on concrete objects with etudes that adjusted the
content of the improvisations to a “map” of the dynamic principles
inherent in Active Analysis. This research design was prompted by
the prominent director Anatoly Vasiliev, who explained during a
master class that “improvisation is freer than an etude,” which
engages actors in a process of “mapping the play.” This process
limits actors’ freedom, he added, by placing them within “the
confines of that map.” Among the valuable findings of the S
Word experiment, one result seemed particularly notable. The
actors unanimously reported feeling more secure in the etudes
than in the improvisations, because the dynamic structure of the
map better allowed them to focus on character relationships,
whereas the improvisations had demanded that they pay equal,
if not more attention to the creation of story.

I have long sought to bring scholarly inquiry and acting practice into conversation with
each other, particularly with regard to the work of Stanislavsky, who is a model for
practice-based research. The deep disconnect between the researching and making of art
struck me in graduate school as especially pronounced in studies about acting, which, like
riding a bicycle, depends upon tacit knowledge, carried in the body, and thus resistant to
standard scholarly analysis. There is little doubt that acting is easier to do than to analyze.
Nonetheless, I stubbornly tested my traditional research on Russian theatre against my
experience as an actor. For example, while examining the theories of the avant-garde
director and playwright Nikolai Evreinov, I simultaneously directed his play, A Merry
Death, and used that artistic work to inform my dissertation. I did not, however, include
in my writing an explicit statement on how directing brought me insights into Evreinov’s
imagination. My experimentation remained hidden in the final book’s subtext, because
practice-based research was not then an accepted methodology.1
Times have changed; the academic milieu is adjusting, slowly but surely, to new
methodologies, including practice-based research. True, the multiple ways in which

CONTACT Sharon Marie Carnicke carnicke@usc.edu

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
18 S. M. CARNICKE

practice can enrich theatre research have not yet been integrated into the curricula of
our schools and universities, but attention is being paid.2 I am all the more convinced
that mending the long-lived disconnect between artistic work and its analysis is
essential for understanding acting’s long history and its continuing power to move
audiences. While the border between theatre scholarship and acting practice is still
protected in academia, its crossing often yields gratifying insights into the evanescent,
yet enduring art of acting.
The S Word Practical Acting Laboratory, held at the University of California in
Riverside (UCR) over one weekend in April 2018 contributed to the changing academic
milieu. Bella Merlin (Professor of Acting UCR) and Paul Fryer (Director of the
Stanislavsky Research Centre) conceived of the event as an innovative symposium in
which three master teachers (myself included) would engage in practice-based research
with willing participants. There would be no prepared talks and no set expectations.
Instead, each of us would meet a group of participants on Friday for one hour, work
with them on our research questions for eight hours on Saturday and meet with the
other two groups on Sunday to share our findings. In short, master teachers and
participants alike were being challenged to enter unchartered territory, bare our artistic
souls, and engage in practice-based experiments on the evanescent art of acting in a
mere ten hours of collective work. As the organizers explained: “The emphasis is on
curiosity, experimentation, and true practical research. [. . .] New embodied knowledge
may be developed during the actual Practical Acting Laboratory. Or it may not. Failure
is an option.”3 I could not resist the challenge.
While the experimental thrust of the S Word Laboratory did not faze me, two given
circumstances did. First, my current research involves adapting Active Analysis to
contemporary professional acting. I could not initially imagine furthering that research
with a group of participants who would likely not know the technique’s basics and
would instead bring “a host of different levels and expertise into the room.”4 Second,
the time frame meant that any experiment could be conducted only once. Scientifically
speaking, experiments must be repeatable to ensure that findings are actual. When I
shared these concerns with Bella Merlin, she reminded me that the symposium itself
was intended to be an experiment. “Unlike a usual classroom or conference or mas-
terclass,” she wrote, “we really don’t have to prove anything. Failure is an option – just
as chemical experiments don’t necessarily have guaranteed success.”5 Despite her
reassurance, I still felt an obligation to myself and the participants to offer the possi-
bility of a positive outcome. Clearly, I needed a research question and experimental
design that would turn the two worrisome circumstances into strengths.

The research question

In my experience, Stanislavsky’s last, most innovative rehearsal technique, now widely
known as Active Analysis, fosters precisely the kind of flexibility that today’s actors need
to work across new dramaturgies, with new media, and within the rapidly changing
professional and commercial conditions that constrain creativity.6 Therefore, I wanted
my S Word experiment to advance knowledge about Active Analysis.
I first learned about the technique from the many Russian language publications by
Maria Knebel, a character actor at the Moscow Art Theatre and prominent Soviet
 STANISLAVSKI STUDIES 19

director, who assisted Stanislavsky in his last years and became, after his death, Russia’s
most influential master teacher.7 I also studied Active Analysis in Moscow at GITIS
(now the Russian Academy of Theatrical Arts) with Knebel’s protégés, Natalia Zverova
and Leonid Kheifits. I now regularly use it to teach and stage the classics and to work on
postdramatic plays, devised performances, performance-capture technology and most
recently digital gaming. In my private Studio in Los Angeles, I investigate its applica-
tions for professional auditioning and acting with a group of dedicated working actors.8
The heart of Active Analysis involves studying the interpersonal dynamics within a
scene using etudes (from the French word “study”) that engage the actors in improvi-
satory explorations of their characters’ circumstances and stories. The technique is
“analysis” because “the goal of the etude is to dig deeply into the text” and thus to
discover “what is actually there.”9 Every successive etude digs deeper in order to
uncover more about the facts in the text that determine what characters say, how
they speak, and what they do in relationship to each other over the course of the play.
The technique is “active,” because etudes allow the cast to test their understanding of
scenes by doing, rather than discussing them. Etudes can mine a text by using a variety
of means, including paraphrases of written dialogue and silent interactions that physi-
calize the subtextual dynamics. In other words, through etudes actors tap directly into
the tacit knowledge that they carry in their bodies and souls, rather than treating script
analysis as a purely intellectual exercise. To quote Knebel, the etude is designed to help
actors “own every episode in a play.”10 An etude is “true” (verno) and “accurate”
(pravilno) when it helps actors find in a text what they need to transform a play into
a performance.11 While the principles of Active Analysis are, at base, quite simple, its
practice is endlessly intricate because, through the etude, actors “make the full complex-
ity of their roles their own, without ever separating the psychological, inner aspects of
acting from the physical, external ones.”12
The impulse for my research question at the S Word Laboratory came when I caught
myself and some of my Studio actors using the word “improvisation” as a synonym for
“etude.” I did not recall ever having experienced this slippage when reading Russian
sources or working with my Russian colleagues; and I wondered whether one could
actually equate the two terms.
Stanislavsky wrote little about the rehearsal technique that would later be called
“Active Analysis.” There are some unfinished drafts that describe his earliest ideas for
the technique, as well as some transcripts of rehearsal sessions from the 1930s.13 In
these, he says nothing specific about improvisation as distinct from etudes. His most
notable statement on improvisation per se can be found in the first volume of his chef
d’oeuvre, An Actor’s Work on Himself (Rabota aktera nad soboi). The fictional teacher
Tortsov is explaining to his students his preference for the experiencing of a role, rather
than its representation. “In our art,” he says, “much can be done by way of improvisa-
tion on one or another firmly set theme. Such creative work gives freshness and
spontaneity to performance.”14
In her writings, Knebel never uses the word “improvisation” to describe an “etude,”
although occasionally she refers to the “improvised text” that emerges when actors use
their own words to explore a scene.15 Instead, she consistently refers to the etude as a “search”
(poisk) for the interactive possibilities within a play’s text,16 thus emphasizing the etude’s
purpose as analysis.
20 S. M. CARNICKE

When recalling the early days of the Group Theatre, Harold Clurman explains that
the directors sometimes asked the actors to “improvise situations similar, but not
identical to those to be found in the play” and at other times to use “improvisations
based on the doing of the actual scenes in the play with the actors using their own
words.”17 While the first type strikes me as actual improvisation, the second appears to
be an early form of etude, harkening back to the time when Stanislavsky was engaged in
developing the technique. Clurman’s description is brief, however, no doubt because, as
he also observes, the use of improvisation at the Group was short-lived in view of the
fact that “the commercial theatre is unfamiliar with this method, and scornful of it.”18
This absence of clarity on how improvisations differ from etudes in the classic
sources on Active Analysis meant that my slip-of-the-tongue needed further investiga-
tion and could therefore prompt my research question for the Riverside experiment.
Moreover, by asking whether and how improvisations and etudes differ, I could also
productively leverage the varied experience of the participants in my group. While I
claim expertise in Stanislavsky’s System and in Active Analysis, I do not generally work
with improvisation as it is practiced in the U.S., whether it be through Viola Spolin’s
theatre games or through a school of comedy improv like Second City or Upright
Citizens Brigade. Since I would be working with strangers in Riverside, I could learn
from them the kinds of assumptions, based on prior training and experience, that a
random set of actors might bring into any Active Analysis rehearsal hall.

The experimental design

How could I answer my question experimentally in ten hours of collective work? I
discussed the matter with my close colleague, Lyubov Zabolotskaia Weidner, a Russian
actor who has worked extensively with two high profile directors, Anatoly Efros and
Anatoly Vasiliev, both trained by Knebel and closely linked to the evolution of Active
Analysis in Russia. Weidner describes improvisation as an exercise in imagination, in
which an actor chooses an object of attention or a theme and plays with it, following
any creative impulse that might arise in the moment. Actors are only limited by the
scope of their imaginations. In contrast, an etude follows a text, even though the actor
uses a “free reading” (svobodnoe chtenie), rather than a memorized “hard reading”
(tverdoe chtenie) of the lines. She took these last two terms from her work with Vasiliev
and pointed me to a passage from one of his master classes, which I quote in full here:

Improvisation is freer than an etude. One can say that in an etude, an actor improvises.
That would not be a mistake. But an etude is located, say, in Africa. It is always a matter of
geography, of mapping the play; and we move around within the confines of that map. We
are guided by the map when we improvise in an etude. But an improvisation may go
entirely elsewhere! An etude allows us to study the play by means of action; the action
develops in parallel with the map; we extract action from the author’s text, like geography
from a map. During an improvisation, however, the actor creates action from a given
theme. If, during an etude, the actor must move according to a map, then during an
improvisation, the actor can move by composing the action entirely. In an etude, the only
freedom left to the actor is what can be found in the text. In an improvisation, there are
two freedoms: the actor creates both the action from a given theme and the text. This
means that one is not at all the other.19
 STANISLAVSKI STUDIES 21

My discussion with my colleague and Vasiliev’s passage suggested a two-stage protocol:

Stage I: The group would create free improvisations using concrete objects to prompt
themes in their work: a jump rope, an old telephone, a cassette tape, an ashtray, a wine
bottle, etc. I would give them no instructions and, instead, observe how their work reveals
their assumptions about improvising.
Transition: I would then teach the dynamic principles of Active Analysis as I practice
them. In other words, I would provide them with a map.
Stage II: The actors would revise their initial improvisations into etudes by adjusting their
use of objects and themes to the Active Analysis map.

This two-stage experimental design seemed sound to me, based upon my prior work
with scientists in experiments that had used Active Analysis to examine the human
expression of emotion and social learning.20 I had learned that the fewer variables that
change in an experiment the likelier it is to discover something valuable. If too many
changes occur at once, it becomes impossible to tell what is actually happening as the
experiment unfolds. In my design, the concrete objects and themes in the initial
improvisations would remain stable, making the application of the Active Analysis
map the most influential agent of change in the etudes. Moreover, because I would give
the group this map just prior to their revisions, I could be fairly certain that they would
share a common understanding of it.
In short, I expected that this methodology would allow the group to compare and
contrast improvisations with etudes and feel reasonably sure that our findings actually
addressed the research question, rather than unintentionally eliciting information about
something else entirely, like storytelling or the participants’ prior actor training.
Armed with a solid research question and a manageable experimental design, I
packed up a box of objects and drove to Riverside, following the geographical map
on my GPS. “If we should fail? – we fail.” But, now with a clearly articulated question
and a plan for how to answer it, I felt that, if we but “screw [our] courage to the sticking
place, we’ll not fail.”21

Stanislavsky’s experimentation with Active Analysis

Active Analysis was born from Stanislavsky’s incessant experimentation with acting.
The trajectory of his career as a director offers insight into his deep-seated drive toward
practice-based research. From the founding of the Moscow Art Theatre in 1897 to his
creation of the Opera-Dramatic Studio in 1934, just four short years before his death, he
transformed his work, step by step, from that of a controlling director in charge of all
aspects of a production to that of a collaborative leader, who guides the creative work of
an ensemble of equals in the devising of a production.22 A few facts about his career
make this trajectory visible.
From 1897 on, Stanislavsky wrote detailed prompt-books that were used during
rehearsals. These books record the myriad of acting and design details that he, in
discussion with his partner Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, pre-determined for
the Moscow Art Theatre productions. One can find in these books Stanislavsky’s
readings of the plays, his sound and set design ideas, interpretations of the char-
acters, descriptions and drawings for the blocking of the actors, the physical
22 S. M. CARNICKE

rhythms and tempos that he wanted in performance (down to the number of

seconds he wanted individual actors to hold a pose or to kiss), etc., etc.
Rehearsals began with the directors explaining the play to the actors, followed by a
read-through and lengthy discussions around the table. Then the play was blocked,
guided by the prompt-books, with Stanislavsky often demonstrating to the actors
exactly what he wanted. Nemirovich-Danchenko beautifully captured this phase of
Stanislavsky’s work in a letter to him from 1905:

When you are on stage, showing the actors how to express this or that, gripped by the
profundity of the scenic image. . . you are a very great director, and with all of my artistic
exigency, I admire you. This is Stanislavsky, deserving of his glory.23

By 1905, however, Stanislavsky had begun to question his and his partner’s assumptions
about theatre, as both an actor and director. This questioning led Stanislavsky to
experiment with the elusive power of creativity in acting and to his long-lived commit-
ment to experimentation, which eventually resulted in the acting System, which is now
practiced globally and continues to evolve.
Stanislavsky’s experimental work began in earnest in 1905, when he set up a Studio-
Theatre on Povarskaia Street with his protégé, Vsevolod Meyerhold, who had played
Treplev in the Moscow Art Theatre’s Seagull, and was then beginning his directing
career as an innovator in anti-realism. The two men called their Studio “a laboratory for
actors” and, as if quoting from The Seagull, they added that it was intended as “a theatre
of research into new forms.”24
The Studio’s watchword was improvisation. They innovated a new rehearsal
technique which dispensed with a discussion of the play, went directly to a read-
through, followed immediately by the actors working with the director on inter-
preting the text via improvisation. Clearly, the seeds of Active Analysis were first
planted in this early laboratory. They tried this process in 1905 on a planned
production at the Moscow Art Theatre of Knut Hamsun’s symbolist drama, The
Game of Life. Their rehearsals appalled Nemirovich-Danchenko, who felt betrayed as
a playwright and as MAT’s administrator halted the production. As he wrote to
Stanislavsky:

I saw you clutching at straws just so as not to lose time, and then you simply turned
stubborn, offended, and capricious; and finally, given that I sensed immediately that such a
way of working would immediately create an all too familiar chaos, dissatisfaction, loss of
time, even destroy the play – I gathered all my energy in protest.25

The Studio-Theatre on Povarskaia Street lasted a scant six months, as much due to the
disruption caused by the failed Russian Revolution of 1905 as to Stanislavsky’s “capri-
ciousness” (to quote Danchenko).26 When Stanislavsky returned to The Game of Life in
1907, he had dutifully prepared a detailed prompt-book. Nonetheless, his desire to
create an improvisatory rehearsal technique did not die.
With the founding of his last Studio in the 1930s, the Opera-Dramatic, Stanislavsky
was finally able to return to the investigation that he had begun in 1905. His experi-
mentation in his last years would eventually result in the improvisatory-based rehearsal
technique, now widely known as Active Analysis. He was no longer the controlling
director, nor was he “clutching at straws” in the midst of “chaos.”27 He had reconceived
 STANISLAVSKI STUDIES 23

the director as an artistic leader of a collaborative ensemble of actors, who together

create the production. Thus, when the Chekhov scholar Sergey Dmitrievich Balukhaty
sought permission to publish the 1898 promptbook for The Seagull, Stanislavsky
said no:

Keep in mind that the mise-en-scène for The Seagull was prepared in the old method, now
no longer used, of imposing upon the actor my own feelings, and not according to the new
method that teaches actors to prepare the materials themselves in order that they find on
their own what’s necessary for the mise-en-scène.28

Just as Stanislavsky’s experimentation in 1905 met resistance, so too was his later
experimentation curtailed by the political exigencies of Stalinism. The 1930s embrace
one of the darkest decades in the history of the Soviet Union, when all artists were
limited to Socialist Realism as their sole artistic style and subjected to stringent censor-
ship that not only banned ideas but also prescribed what could be said and written. Yet,
Stanislavsky continually pressed against the grain. For example, during the 1930s he
rejected his world-wide identification with realism by working at the Opera-Dramatic
Studio on verse drama, opera, and devised performances. Similarly, he insisted upon
using the words “soul” and “spirit” in his books, despite the atheistic demands of the
Soviet censors.29
Stanislavsky’s international fame saved him from the fate of many Soviet artists,
who disappeared into Stalin’s labor camps to pay with their lives for their politi-
cally-incorrect art. Instead, like Maxim Gorky, Stanislavsky was confined to his
home and closely monitored by the loyal Soviet doctors, nurses, and actors, who
reported on him to the State in the last years of his life. While Stanislavsky
conducted in private politically questionable experiments on acting, Soviet propa-
gandists promoted in public sanitized versions of his work and brought his ideas
into compliance with Socialist Realism and Marxist materialism. Additionally,
under these conditions, everything that Stanislavsky wrote and was reported to
have said was heavily censored. At his death in 1938, he left no records, only
memories, of his most radical ideas and experimentation. Thus, he effectively left
it to his students and Studio assistants to keep his last experimental ideas alive,
some of whom, like Maria Knebel, struggled to keep his holistic approach to acting
intact, and others of whom, like Mikhail Kedrov, protected the sanctioned Soviet
interpretations.30
With the so-called Soviet “thaw” in the arts during the 1960s, Maria Knebel emerged
as the most clear-eyed witness to Stanislavsky’s last work. Her writings brought the full
scope of his work at the Opera-Dramatic Studio to light, and she gave his last rehearsal
technique the apt descriptor of Active Analysis in order to distinguish it from the
materialist, Soviet versions that were circulating as the Method of Physical Actions. Her
promotion of Active Analysis has been widely praised for breathing new life and
enthusiasm into the post-Stalinist Soviet theatre31; and, as mentioned earlier, I derive
my understanding and practice of it from her.
24 S. M. CARNICKE

The 2018 experiment on improvisations and etudes

Introductions (Friday evening, April 6, one hour)
My group was fifteen strong, four men and nine women.32 Twelve identified themselves
as actors. Of these, five had extensive backgrounds in the professional arena, including
Broadway, and in community theatre; four combined acting with teaching in academia;
one also worked in technical theatre; two were undergraduate students. The remaining
three are influential interdisciplinary scholars with research interests that embrace film,
history, literature, performance studies, and anthropology. They came from the local
area, U.S. states beyond California, Australia, New Zealand, and England. A few knew
my publications on Stanislavsky’s and Knebel’s work. The two undergraduates were
currently studying Active Analysis with Bella Merlin at UCR. The majority were trained
in other Stanislavsky-based methods, including Sanford Meisner’s interactive techni-
ques and Lee Strasberg’s emotion recall.
We shared our various perspectives on acting in order to forge a collaborative
ensemble, in which everyone’s contribution would be respected and valued. I then
explained the research question and my hope that our experiment might illuminate
something of value about the improvisatory heart of Active Analysis. I ended the
session by distributing the passage from Vasiliev (cited above) and outlining the two-
stage protocol for our work the next day.

Stage I: improvisations with concrete objects (Saturday morning, April 7, three

hours)
We began with a brief warm-up based on Stanislavsky’s work with yoga. I then broke
the participants into five groups of three. Each group chose an object for the day’s
experiment. The groups worked independently with their objects for about thirty
minutes to develop improvisations, using whatever approach they desired. We then
reassembled to watch the five improvisations. Two groups tested the limits of
imagination:
IMPROVISATION 1: Ginna, Hillary and Melanie used a princess telephone to create an
advertisement for a multiuse camping tool. They disassembled the phone into its compo-
nent parts, using the parts as separate tools. They demonstrated how the mouthpiece could
be balanced on the head to train the posture of a beginning hiker. They then showed how,
by reconnecting the base with the mouthpiece and balancing both on the head, the tool
could be adjusted to train deportment in an advanced hiker as well. They showed how the
chord also had multiple uses: a tether to keep two hikers connected as they search for a
campground in the dark; a walkie-talkie to speak to each other; and finally, when they
settle down in camp for the night, a musical instrument that makes a cheerful buzzing
sound when twirled around the head.

In our debriefing, the three actors reported that they had decided from the first not to
use the phone as a phone, but rather to challenge themselves to find other functions.
This idea reminded me of the Russian Formalist concept of estrangement (ostranenie)
in which a work of art makes an otherwise familiar object appear strange. The actors
also told us that the idea of the advertisement had come to them only after we had
reassembled.
 STANISLAVSKI STUDIES 25

IMPROVISATION 2: Gloria, Ann, and Philippa explored the potential within a jump
rope. They started literally by jumping with it and moved into metaphoric associations.
Their handling of it transformed the rope into a snake, an umbilical cord, a micro-
phone, even a line on a graph tracking a TV show’s descending ratings. Their impro-
visation unfolded like a kaleidoscope, offering new surprises at every turn. In short, they
engaged in continuous play in front of their viewers for about five minutes.

In the debriefing, the three actors said that they had planned nothing in advance.
Instead, they followed whatever imaginative impulse came to them. When the groups
assembled to show their various improvisations, they realized that they could not repeat
anything that they had done. So, for us, they merely continued exploring associations
with the rope. Thus, their work fit my colleague Weidner’s definition of improvisation
exactly.
Ginna, Hillary and Melanie reported that they had similarly used the thirty minutes
to play with the telephone. What they showed to us differed only because, when faced
with an audience, they felt the need for a structure that would allow them to perform,
and hastily added the concept of the advertisement. Their observation suggests that the
presence of onlookers can condition the act of improvisation.

IMPROVISATION 3: Aaron, Joelle and Bryan portrayed strangers thrown together

after an airplane crash, in which Bryan had injured his leg. As their improvisation
began, they were making their way out of the darkening forest, using a flashlight (the
object) to guide them, but Bryan was becoming weaker and could hobble no further.
They had to stop and find another solution. Should they huddle together for warmth,
using the flashlight to fend off animal attacks? Should they instead build a fire? But,
without a match, how? Should one of them take the flashlight and go find help? If so,
who? Aaron seemed particularly reluctant to split up the group. It would mean
leaving Joelle and Bryan alone without light. When Joelle forced the issue by taking
the flashlight from Aaron and starting off, Aaron realized that he would likely be
better able than she to find help quickly. He took back the flashlight and left, as Joelle
sat down to wait, cradling the injured Bryan in her arms.

The onlookers agreed that the actors’ close attention and concern for each other
produced a moving, realistic scene. Moreover, the three had brought closure to their
scenario through Aaron’s decision. However, until that final moment, the actors had
swung from one idea to another without continuous progression towards a climax. No
doubt, this meandering came from the actors’ feeling their way through their agreed-
upon scenario.

IMPROVISATION 4: Pia, Sean, and Stephen portrayed three siblings, squabbling over a
toy train engine that Pia, as the youngest, wanted to keep. Sean emerged as a controlling
older brother with Stephen trying to placate both Pia and Sean. As their squabbles
intensified and voices were raised, their annoyance with each other reached a fever
pitch. Their improvisation became a crazy quilt of desire and jealousy, with Pia pulling
the toy away from the others and protecting it from them.

In our debriefing, the onlookers felt that an absurdist style had emerged from the
actors’ heightened emotions over such an apparently trivial toy. The style was also
furthered by the apparent discrepancy in the ages of the siblings. Pia’s behavior seemed
extremely childish, while Sean’s and Stephen’s reasoning made them appear signifi-
cantly older, even parental. Did this mean that there was an unusual span in the
26 S. M. CARNICKE

siblings’ age-range? Or was there something unusual in the youngest child’s develop-
ment or personality? The viewers also questioned where the improvisation was taking
place. Was this squabble occurring in their home? Had their parents died and did the
toy represent their legacy? Or was this encounter set elsewhere, perhaps in a mental
facility or hospital with the brothers visiting their disturbed sister? On the one hand, the
group had produced a dramatic improvisation with interesting swings of emotionality
in an absurdist style. On the other hand, the questions about character and place made
it difficult for the onlookers to tell whether the style was intentional.
The last improvisation merged a realistic situation with non-realistic movement:
IMPROVISATION 5: Mary had stolen the statue of a cat from an antique store as a gift for
her mother’s birthday and was showing it to her sister, Katherine. As Katherine urged
Mary to take the statue back, they argued about the ethics of stealing, When Katherine
then found a label on the bottom of the statue, stating that it depicted Bastet, the ancient
Egyptian goddess of security, both Mary’s and Katherine’s attitudes toward the object
changed. Mary wondered if this sculpture could actually be valuable. Katherine began to
gaze at it in awe, as if it were indeed sacred. Susan then appeared behind the two sisters,
moving with cat-like motions, circling around them and hovering her arms over them.
Neither Mary nor Katherine looked at Susan, only at the statue, as if Susan remained
invisible. The improvisation ended when Katherine seized the statue from Mary, put it on
a chair, and kneeled to it as if it were the goddess incarnate.

Mary reported that each of them had very different responses to their object, and they
wanted to retain those differences in their work. I also learned that I had inadvertently
teamed two close colleagues, Susan and Katherine, and they had decided to use the
improvisation to change their usual relationship with one another. Therefore, Katherine
played Mary’s sister, while Susan remained the outsider.
The onlookers unanimously found improvisation 5 fascinating. Yet, it lacked some
clarity. Specifically, we asked about the exact relationship between the statue and Susan?
Were they different entities or extensions of one another? Was Susan a stray cat or had
the statue come to life? We also asked about Susan’s relationship to the sisters. Were the
sisters unaware of Susan or did they ignore her? This group’s work, like that of the third
group, also swung from idea to idea without progressively building toward a climax,
until Katherine decided to kneel in worship to the statue. Finally, this improvisation
brought an entirely different, non-realist style to their work through the inclusion of
Susan’s improvised dance.
The actors in the third, fourth and fifth improvisations reported working in much
the same way. They had decided upon a scenario, had determined the broad outlines of
the characters, and then had performed their improvisations for the first time in front
of us. In observing their preparatory work, I also noticed that the actors had tested their
ideas by rehearsing prior to their performances. This process followed traditional
theatrical methods and produced recognizably dramatic scenes, although the three
improvisations lacked the focus and clarity generally provided by written scenes.

Transition: the active analysis map (Saturday, late morning, April 7, one hour)
I introduced the principles of Active Analysis, using interactive exercises to make the
theoretical concepts clear as acting practice. In this essay, however, I confine myself to a
 STANISLAVSKI STUDIES 27

brief description of the three major principles of Active Analysis that the actors used as
their map in Stage II of our experiment: (1) action-counteraction-and-event; (2)
alliances; and (3) verbs.
First, Active Analysis teaches actors to read scenes as a dynamic interplay between an
action that impels the scene and a counteraction that resists the forward momentum of
the action. The scene ends when an event occurs that brings this interplay to a halt.
Vector analysis from physics, which assesses the direction and intensity of forces
provides a wonderful analogy to explain these dynamic principles. If I throw a baseball,
I impel an action – the baseball’s flight. Gravity now becomes the baseball’s partner
exerting a counteraction that changes the trajectory of the baseball, curving its path
down toward the ground. When the baseball finally falls, the event occurs that effec-
tively brings the interplay between the ball’s flight and gravity to an end.
While our experiment needs only this interplay of action-counteraction-and-event, I
will add that Active Analysis also conceives of the full play as a chain of events, that tells
the play’s story and traces its dramatic development over time. Each scene links to the
next, thus telling the story and creating the dramatic structure for its performance. If I
were to build a play from my baseball analogy, I might create a second scene by
introducing a dog, who steals the fallen ball and runs away with it. His impelling action
begins this new scene, which could develop in any number of ways – perhaps I chase
him (a new counteraction), but he escapes (a new event). Or I might catch him (an
alternative event). If we were working on a text, the written play would serve as our
blueprint for the story’s development. If we were devising a play, we would ourselves
create the repeatable chain of events that would serve as our performance text.
In short, the Active Analysis map asks three basic questions of actors: Which
character in a scene carries the impelling action? Which provides resistance through
a counteraction? And what event occurs that brings the scene’s interaction to an end
and advances the story? When working with a text, the written dialogue is examined for
answers to these questions. In our experiment, however, there is no written text, thus
allowing the groups more latitude in their answers. Nonetheless, to follow the map in
preparing their etudes, the actors will first need to decide in advance on answers to
these questions.
Second, because I had divided my participants into groups of three, they needed to
know another major principle of Active Analysis. The center of gravity in any scene is
always the collision between an action and counteraction. In a two-person scene,
mapping this dynamic is fairly straightforward. If there are more than two characters
in a scene, however, actors need to determine not only which character carries the
action and which the counteraction, but also how the others in the scene form alliances
to assist one of the forces in the central collision. If I were to return to my baseball
analogy, I might envision the wind as a character in alliance with the action, helping the
baseball fly further and faster before hitting the ground. Alternatively, the wind could
ally itself with gravity and blow against the flight of the baseball’s trajectory. For our
experiment, each group would next need to determine which of the three actors would
function in the etude as an alliance.
Third, knowing the dynamic structure of a scene is never enough to perform it.
Theory becomes practice when each actor selects a playable verb to advance their
dynamic function within the scene. The baseball flies; gravity pulls down; the wind
28 S. M. CARNICKE

blows either with or against the ball. For our experiment, therefore, I asked each actor
to choose an active verb – to persuade, to avoid, to tease, to mock, to hypnotize, to
threaten, etc., etc.
To follow the Active Analysis map during the performance of their etudes, the actors
need only do as their verbs direct them, trusting that what they do will make their
decisions about actions, counteractions, events, and alliances palpable.

Stage II: etudes with concrete objects (Saturday afternoon, April 7, three hours)
We started with a physical warm-up and a quick review of the Active Analysis map. The
five groups then worked independently for about forty minutes to revise their impro-
visations into etudes. We then re-assembled to watch the five etudes. In applying the
Active Analysis map, the two groups that had devised the freest improvisations now
added stories:
ETUDE 1: Ginna, Hillary and Melanie retained their initial concept, but treated their etude
as a prequel to the filming of their advertisement. As the inventors of the camping device,
they had hired a professional actor to perform the commercial; but moments before
filming, they learn that the actor has been in a terrible automobile accident. Since they
cannot reschedule, they must decide who among them will perform. The etude developed
as each one proved more reluctant than the others to step forward. Hillary carried the
impelling action, as she tried to organize Ginna and Melanie, who counteracted. As they
resisted, first Ginna and then Melanie seized the action, pressing Hillary to perform. The
etude ended when Ginna, who proved the least forceful of the three, found herself alone on
the set as the filming began.

By adding a story, the actors successfully created three distinct characters and greater
dramatic urgency, which was well supported by the interactive dynamics of Active
Analysis. It was easy to see the impelling action and the counteraction being handed
from one actor to the next as the etude developed. The event was produced externally
when the camera went live. Because all three grappled with the same reluctance,
pushing and pulling at each other to get on or off the set, they also retained the
comic tone that had initially emerged from their creative manipulation of the telephone.
In the etude, however, the comedy came not from the actors’ sheer inventiveness, but
from the characters’ situation as they bickered like a set of three stooges.
The second etude transformed the initial improvisation more radically than any of
the other four:
ETUDE 2: Gloria, Ann, and Philippa used two images from their improvisation with the
jump rope (the graph of falling ratings for a television show and the microphone) to
prompt a strong and nuanced story. Philippa portrayed a news anchor, readying herself for
the evening show; Ann was the producer; and Gloria played the newest intern on set,
helping Philippa with her microphone. Ann suspected that Philippa may have been subject
to sexual harassment by the studio head. Ann approached Philippa to ask if she had been
having any trouble with their boss, thus impelling the scene forward (the action) by trying
to coax the truth (her verb) from her colleague. Philippa resisted (the counteraction) by
trying to make light (her verb) of Ann’s suspicions. As Ann pressed Philippa, Gloria felt
uncomfortable, fearing that, should she take sides, she might lose her job. Nonetheless, she
tried to keep the show on track (her verb), thus aligning herself with Philippa. Observing
this situation, Ann sent Gloria on an errand in order to have some privacy with Philippa.
 STANISLAVSKI STUDIES 29

As Ann again fished for the truth, Philippa broke into tears, revealing that the studio head
had raped her and threatened to fire her if she ever told. The etude ended with Gloria
entering to announce that the camera was going live.

Everyone agreed that the map had guided the group to a powerfully moving scene, in
which the dynamic elements of Active Analysis were evident. Unlike the first group,
which used comedy in both stages of our experiment, the second group shifted tone.
While they had earlier delighted us with their inventiveness, they now shocked and
moved us through a tragic story that was timely in its themes. The actors reported that
their major focus while performing was holding on to the verbs that they had chosen.
The most significant moment in the second etude occurred when Philippa cried. She
said that her tears surprised her, welling up, because her partner’s search for the truth
had simply made it too hard for her to continue to make light (her verb) of Ann’s
questions.
In my view, Philippa had experienced the holistic operations of Active Analysis at its
best. By pursuing a verb within the dynamic structures of a scene, she felt an emotion
that was elicited organically from the interpersonal forces in the etude. Philippa’s
response exemplified how Stanislavsky’s approach to emotion in acting is different
from those American interpretations of his System that train actors to prepare for
reactions by using analogous situations or emotion recall. While Stanislavsky expects
actors to prepare the soil for emotion to grow by investigating the circumstances and
interactions within a scene, he asks actors only to attend to what they are doing and
thinking as their characters while they perform.33 If an etude digs deeply enough into
the facts of a scene, performing it can often lead actors to discover emotional complex-
ity that they could not have otherwise anticipated.
The last three etudes stayed close to the stories that the actors had generated in their
improvisations:

ETUDE 3: Aaron, Joelle, and Bryan began their etude in much the same way as they had
begun their improvisation, but this time they portrayed a family. Unable to go any further
on his hurt leg, Bryan carried the impelling action; he called a halt to their progress and
tried to build a fire from nearby sticks of wood. Aaron provided the counteraction by
resisting his son’s impulse to set up camp; he took the flashlight and began searching for a
path forward. Aaron clearly wanted to push on despite the dark, fearing that a make-shift
camp would put them in greater danger. Joelle allied herself with her son by pleading with
her husband to stay. The event occurred when Aaron realized that he must stay and
protect his family until morning. The etude ended in a striking mise-en-scene, as the family
huddled together on the ground for warmth, with Joelle in the middle holding onto both
Bryan and Aaron.

All the elements of the map were again evident. We were surprised by the event,
however, in light of the earlier improvisation which had ended with Aaron’s exit. Aaron
too reported feeling surprised by his decision; he said that when he looked at Joelle and
Bryan, he simply could not go. Thus, Aaron’s experience mirrored Philippa’s, similarly
exposing how an etude can reveal unanticipated possibilities within a dramatic situa-
tion. We also observed that the map had provided the actors with a productive pattern
of gradually rising intensity. In contrast to their improvisation which had multiple
climaxes as the group tested their characters’ possible responses to their situation, the
30 S. M. CARNICKE

etude built steadily to the climatic event, thus offering the audience a sense of dramatic
closure.
ETUDE 4: In the siblings’ quarrel, Pia clearly carried the impelling action by desperately
holding onto her beloved toy engine, often cradling it against her body and turning away
from her brothers. Sean emerged as the primary counteraction, trying physically to wrest
the toy from her hands. Stephen allied himself primarily with Pia, protecting her from
Sean’s aggressive action. At times, Stephen stepped physically between the other two in
order to moderate. The struggle became a physical conflict that resulted in the toy breaking
as it fell to the floor.

In the debriefing, the onlookers agreed that this etude stayed very close to the initial
improvisation. Yet, the etude was not the same in quality of behavior and performance
style. On the one hand, the actors had successfully used the elements of Active Analysis
to clarify their characters’ attitudes towards their object and thus to intensify their
interaction. What had been a squabble became a fully-fledged fight. Interestingly, the
object ultimately paid the price in collateral damage for the characters’ rivalry. On the
other hand, with Pia and Sean now behaving as if they were equally young, the actors
largely eliminated the absurdist overtones that had occurred in their improvisation,
resulting in a more realist etude.
The fifth group retained in their etude both the story and the mixture of realism and
non-realism that had characterized their improvisation:
ETUDE 5: Mary carried the action by asking Katherine to approve of her having stolen the
statue of a cat as a gift for their mother. Katherine provided the primary counteraction,
first by criticizing Mary’s theft and second by insisting that she return the object to the
store. But as Katherine gazed upon the statue, Susan emerged from behind it as Bastet and
seized the action in the scene by enticing Katherine to hold on to the idol. As Katherine
falls increasingly under the goddess’ spell, she can no longer imagine either returning the
statue or letting anyone else have it. Her fascination has turned into a strong desire to keep
and protect it. Susan physicalized her counteraction by dancing between the two sisters
and separating them. When Katherine forcibly took the statue away from Mary, the event
occurred that ended the scene.

The actors had improved the dramatic impact of their improvisation by using the
elements of Active Analysis to clarify their relationships with each other. Susan now
unambiguously embodied the spirit of Bastet. In preparing their etudes, the actors
reported that they had primarily talked about how Susan and the statue were linked;
they had decided that she was indeed the spirit of the goddess, held captive within
the literal statue. They also decided that Susan saw Katherine as her potential
liberator. Susan’s dance-like movements made these decisions visible to us, who
watched.

Assessments and discoveries

In assessing Stage I of our experiment, I observed that most improvisations contained
the seeds of a story. Moreover, the stories in improvisations 1, 3, 4 and 5 developed
more or less logically and chronologically with characters who displayed more or less
psychologically coherent personalities and motivations. This tendency might reflect the
participants’ prior training in acting as much as their understanding of improvisation.
 STANISLAVSKI STUDIES 31

Thus, it might be productive in future to repeat this experiment with non-actors, in

order to find out more about the human impulse to tell stories.
The performance styles varied in the improvisations. Realism emerged from 1, 3 and
between the sisters in 5; absurdism in 4 registered through the lack of coherence in
character age and setting; 5 elicited non-realist abstraction through Susan’s lyrical
movement, which pulled the improvisation into imagistic territory. In short, style
emerged primarily from the amount of quotidian details in the backstory and in the
scenarios, with more details resulting in more realistic performances.
The inclusion of a story line generally assisted the groups in two main ways. First, the
participants agreed unanimously that they were uncomfortable with Stage I of our experi-
ment, because they had only a material object on which to rely. In fact, the word “scary”
echoed throughout the room. By adding a shared circumstance and character relationships,
the actors said that they felt more secure. Second, the inclusion of a story made their
improvisations repeatable by providing a structure from which to work. In short, they had
discovered the advantage of having a map – in this case a story – to guide them.
Improvisation 2, which did not use a story but instead continuously generated
associations with the jump rope, fitted most closely with the spontaneity and
moment-to-moment surprises that most people expect from improvising. However, as
a tool for establishing a dramatic performance, this work exposed the fact that impro-
visation, by definition, is unrepeatable, while performance craves repeatability. The first
group had coped with tension between improvisation and performance by adding the
conceit of the advertisement at the last minute.
Despite the inclusion of stories in 1, 3, 4 and 5, all these improvisations lacked focus
in one way or another. Improvisation 1 provided a frame for their inventive treatment
of the telephone, but there was little information about the characters who demon-
strated the camping tool. Neither 3 nor 5 provided the audience with a sense of closure,
because the stories swung from one idea to the next without apparent development.
After 4 the onlookers could not tell whether the absurdist style was intentional.
Finally, none of the actors reported using the central tool of comedy improv, in which
actors are taught to say “yes and. . .” to their partners’ suggestions. I presume, however, that
all of the improvisations, especially the ones with the jump rope and telephone, benefited
inherently from that kind of cooperation. In every case, when one partner offered a new
idea, the others played along until another idea was offered. This unspoken agreement may
well explain why some stories did not build in intensity toward a climax. There was no
particular principle of selectivity at work; all ideas seemed equally relevant and important.
The fact that none of the actors consciously spoke about this standard improv tool
suggested to me that actor training and improvisational techniques may not be as inte-
grated with each other as I had expected. I would like in future to repeat this experiment
with actors trained in comedy improv in order to compare results.
In assessing Stage II of our experiment, the majority of the actors reported that the
Active Analysis Map made the etudes “easier” than the improvisations, because they had
both a dynamic structure and a material object upon which to rely. Their sense of having
had too little help in their improvisations and having had enough in their etudes confirms
Vasiliev’s belief that improvisation grants actors more freedom than do etudes. Yet,
counterintuitively more freedom does not necessarily lead to more satisfying work. In
short, our experiment seemed to affirm the truism that structure can indeed set you free.
32 S. M. CARNICKE

The actors agreed that the map provided two major advantages. First, since they
could rely upon the dynamic principles of Active Analysis to shape their interactions,
dialogue, and storytelling, they could concentrate more fully on listening to and
observing each other. As a result, they felt more fully immersed and less self-conscious
in the etudes than they had in their improvisations, during which they paid equal or
more attention to the creating of their stories. While the brainstorming that had taken
place in Stage I had been fun, performing the etudes in Stage II felt more satisfying.
Second, while stories had earlier furnished repeatability in Stage I, the Active Analysis
map in Stage II provided both repeatability and a way to select among competing
options, assess the efficacy of one decision over another, and thus improve their work.
While the actors relished the fact that moments would resonate differently in successive
etudes, they were equally eager to repeat the etudes in order to dig even deeper into
their scenarios and characters.
In Stage II, I observed that the actors seemed more focused and confident as they
worked; their improvisations in comparison had seemed far more tentative. However,
further testing might be needed to conclude that this observed change resulted from the
Active Analysis map. Since the etudes had put the actors at ease, they may simply have
been better able to access the fundamentals of acting (concentration, attention, listen-
ing, etc.) that they had mastered in their prior training.
Finally, I noticed that those actors who stated their verbs in terms of their partners,
rather than in terms of their material objects, benefited most from the interactive
principles of Active Analysis. For example, to push one’s brother aside registered as a
more dynamic choice than to grab a toy. Because Ann coaxed the truth from Philippa,
who made light of Ann’s suspicions, and because Aaron sought to protect his family
while Bryan and Joelle persuaded Aaron to stay with them, the actors made emotional
discoveries about their scenarios that surprised them and moved us.

An epilogue
Written texts (Saturday evening, April 7, one hour)
The S Word Laboratory was for me a genuine experiment. Yet, I wanted to share the
pleasure I always find in applying the principles of Active Analysis to familiar plays. This
pleasure derives from the technique’s ability to “clean the dust of time off great literary
works.”34 To this end, I selected five very brief scenes from Chekhov’s Three Sisters.
Together we read each scene closely to determine the actions, counteractions, alliances,
and events implied by Chekhov’s text. Then we watched each group perform an etude on
one of the scenes. In this short hour, Chekhov’s world and wit came alive for us.

Culminations (Sunday morning, April 8, two hours)

The full S Word symposium reconvened and all master teachers and participants shared
our experiences. More had been accomplished than any of us had expected. But most
importantly, we had together ventured across the border between the studying and
making of art into the territory of practice-based research on acting.
 STANISLAVSKI STUDIES 33

Notes
1. Carnicke, The Theatrical Instinct.
2. See Riley and Hunter, eds., Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research.
3. http://theatrefutures.org.uk/stanislavski-centre/the-s-word-a-practical-acting-laboratory-
university-of-california-riverside-april-2018/ (accessed 4 August 2018).
4. Personal email to author, 24 October 2016.
5. Personal email to author, 31 October 2016.
6. See Carnicke, “Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis for Twenty-First Century Actors.”
7. See Carnicke, “The Knebel Technique”
8. See Carnicke, “Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis for Twenty-First Century Actors”; Carnicke,
“Emotional Expressivity in Motion Picture Capture Technology”; Carnicke,“Stanislavsky’s
Prescience”; and www.sharoncarnicke.com (accessed 31 August 2018).
9. Knebel’, O deistvennom analize p’esy, 58.
10. Ibid., 43.
11. Ibid., 63–64.
12. Ibid., 44.
13. See Stanislavskii, Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. 4, 366–384; Novitskaia, Uroki vdokhnoveniia;
Vinogradskaia, ed., Stanislavskii repetiruet, 431–511.
14. Stanislavskii, Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. 2, 68; my translation.
15. Knebel’ O deistvennom analize p’esy, 45.
16. Ibid., 62.
17. Clurman, The Collected Works of Harold Clurman, 47.
18. Ibid., 47.
19. Vassiliev [sic], Sept ili huit leçons de théâtre, 40; my translation is from the Russian
transcript.
20. See Carnicke (second author) with Marsella et al., “An Exploration of Delsarte’s Structural
Acting System” ; Carnicke et al., “The USC Creative IT Database; Carnicke (third author)
with Dan Feng et al., “An Active Analysis and Crowd Sourced Approach to Social
Training”.
21. William Shakespeare, Macbeth, 1:7 lines 59–62.
22. Carnicke, “Rethinking ‘Stanislavskian’ Directing”
23. Nemirovich-Danchenko, Tvorcheskoe nasledie, Vol. 1, 550–569; this translation by
Syssoyeva, “Revolution in the Theatre I,” 45.
24. Quoted by Syssoyeva, Ibid., 37.
25. Translated by Syssoyeva, Ibid., 42.
26. Ibid., 42.
27. Ibid.
28. Stanislavskii, Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. 9, 177. Balukhaty eventually published the plan in
1938 after Stanislavsky’s death.
29. For more see Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, chapters 6, 8–10.
30. Ibid., 94–101.
31. Carnicke, “The Knebel Technique”.
32. Joelle Re Arp-Dunham, Melanie Beddie, Ginna Beharry, Ann Goldberg, Hilary Halba,
Stephen Hudson, Katherine Kinney, Mary Munger Taylor, Gloria Olivas, Susan Ossman,
Aaron Pyle, Pia Rickman, Sean Rose, Bryan Soza, and Philippa Strandberg-Long.
33. See Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, chapter 8.
34. Knebel’, Vsia zhizn’, 485.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
34 S. M. CARNICKE

Notes on contributor
Sharon Marie Carnicke is Professor of Theatre and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the
University of Southern California. She has worked professionally as an actor, director, dancer,
and master teacher of Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis. Fluent in Russian and author of the
acclaimed Stanislavsky in Focus, she is known internationally for her groundbreaking work.
She has taught and practiced Active Analysis globally, most recently at the Academy of the Arts
in Norway and NIDA in Australia. Her extensive publications include The Theatrical Instinct,
Reframing Screen Performance (with Cynthia Baron), her widely produced translations of
Chekhov’s plays in 4 Plays and 3 Jokes (including her Kennedy Center award-winning translation
of The Seagull), and Checking out Chekhov: A Guide to the Plays. She is currently at work on a
practical manual for the practice of Active Analysis.

Bibliography
Carnicke, S. M. The Theatrical Instinct: Nikolai Evreinov and the Russian Theatre of the Early
Twentieth Century. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1989.
Carnicke, S. M. Stanislavsky in Focus: An Acting Master for the Twenty-First Century. 2nd ed.
London: Routledge, 2009.
Carnicke, S. M. “The Knebel Technique: Active Analysis in Practice.” In Actor Training, edited
by A. Hodge, 99–116. London: Routledge, 2010.
Carnicke, S. M. “Emotional Expressivity in Motion Picture Capture Technology.” In Acting and
Performance in Moving Image Culture: Bodies, Screens, Renderings, edited by Joerg Sternagel,
Deborah Levitt and Dieter Mersch, 321–337. Berlin: Verlag für Kommunikation, Kultur und
soziale Praxis, 2012.
Carnicke, S. M. 2016.“Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis for Twenty-First Century Actors: Be
Flexible,” Lecture at Rose Bruford, UK, March 2016 on Digital Theatre Plus, December 30.
https://www.digitaltheatreplus.com
Carnicke, S. M. “Rethinking ‘Stanislavskian’ Directing.” In The Great European Directors, edited
by P. Tait, 91–112. 1 vol. London: Palgrave, 2018.
Carnicke, S. M. “Stanislavsky’s Prescience: The Conscious Self in the System and Active Analysis
as a Theory of Mind.” In The Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance and Cognitive
Science, edited by R. Kemp and B. McConachie. London: Routledge, 2018.
Carnicke, S. M. (third author) with, D. Feng, E. Carstensdóttir, M. Seif-El-Nasr, and S. Marsella.
“An Active Analysis and Crowd Sourced Approach to Social Training.” In Interactive
Storytelling: International Conference on Digital Storytelling, 201, 156–167. Berlin: Spinger-
Verlag, 2016.
Carnicke, S. M. (second author) with, S. Marsella, J. Gratch, A. Okhmatovskaia, and A. Rizzo.
“An Exploration of Delsarte’s Structural Acting System.” In Intelligent Virtual Agents 2006,
80–92. Berlin: Spinger-Verlag, 2006.
Carnicke, S. M. S. Narayanan, A. Metallinou, C. Lee, and C. Busso. “The USC Creative IT
Database: A Multimodal Database of Theatrical Improvisation.” In Multimodal Corpora:
Advances in Capturing, Coding and Analyzing Multimodality. MMC, 2010.
Clurman, H. The Collected Works of Harold Clurman: Six Decades of Commentary on Theatre,
Dance, Music, Film, Arts and Letters, eds Loggia and Young. New York: Applause Books, 1994.
Knebel, M. O. Vsia zhizn’. Moscow: VTO, 1967.
Knebel, M. O. O Deistvennom Analize P’esy. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1982.
Nemirovich-Danchenko, V. I. Tvorcheskoe nasledie. Vol. 1. Moscow: Moskovskii khudozhest-
vennyi teatr, 2003.
Novitskaia, L. P. Uroki vdokhnoveniia: Sistema K. S. Stanislavskogo v deistvii. Moscow: VTO,
1984.
Riley, S., and L. Hunter, eds. Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research: Scholarly Acts and
Creative Cartographies. Hampshire: Palgrave Press, 2009.
 STANISLAVSKI STUDIES 35

Stanislavskii, K. S. Sobranie sochinenii. Vol. 2. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1989.

Stanislavskii, K. S. Sobranie sochinenii. Vol. 4. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1991.
Stanislavskii, K. S. Sobranie sochinenii. Vol. 9. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1999.
Syssoyeva, K. M. “Revolution in the Theatre I: Meyerhold, Stanislavsky, and Collective Creation.”
In A History of Collective Creation, edited by Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva and Scott Proudfit,
45. New York: Palgrave, 2013.
Vassiliev, A., [sic]. Sept ili huit leçons de théâtre. Paris: P.O.L, 1999.
Vinogradskaia, I., ed. Stanislavskii Repetiruet: Zapisi I Stenogrammy Repetitsii. Moscow:
Moskovskii khudozhestvennyi teatr, 2000.