Teacher and master student – Jurij Alschitz and Olga Lapina, two generations of Stanislavsky’s disciples explore the legacy of Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky and its relevance for today’s theatre practice in a course of nine profound interactive meetings.

Dr. Jurij Alschitz was educated at Moscow State University in the class of Professor Yury Malkovsky, a direct student of Stanislavsky, and Dr. Olga Lapina graduated from the class of second-generation Stanislavsky’s student Professor  Oleg Kudryashov in Moscow University of Theatre Arts (GITIS). Therefore, they both share a deep practical and theoretical knowledge of the system from within the teacher-to-student lineage, and at the same time they both research the heritage of Stanislavsky from the point of view of its relevance to the modern theatrical reality and question the ways in which practical application of the system can be turned into useful and creative tools, rather than indisputable theatrical religion.

On one hand, familiarity with the basics of the Stanislavsky system is a necessary step in the training of all professional theatre artists – actors, directors, and theatre teachers. Stanislavsky’s discoveries in the field of theatrical pedagogy – formulating a system of elements of creativity, discovering the actor’s methods of self-preparation, the method of physical actions – lay the foundation of theatrical art and constitute the ABC of every theatre professional. On the other hand, Stanislavsky often repeated in his writings that actors and teachers must re-train every 5 years; the speed of transformation of modern times invites the artist to constantly update his art even in a shorter time frame. Every system has to be tested by the movement of time, and none of the previous knowledge, even the most conventional, should be taken without critical mind, artistic curiosity and creative investigation.