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Actors are everywhere, coming at us from the masses of media that invade our eyes and ears - movies, television, plays, commercials, billboards, TikTok, YouTube… Actors are so ubiquitous that we barely notice them as the phenomenon they truly are. It’s as if actors were the dark matter that runs in between everything else.
The stories of individual star actors have been told and retold, but we haven’t really heard their collective story; how acting went from stagey and artificial to what we take for granted today: subtle, authentic, true, human.
This podcast tells the story of two roaring rivers of practice that are both distinct and intertwined. One begins with Stanislavsky whose system would become The Method. The other - equally great but much less well known - descends from the French gurus, Jacques Copeau, Suzanne Bing and Michel Saint-Denis.
The descendants of these gurus include true believers and apostates, radicals and improvisers as diverse as Michael Chekhov, Vakhtangov, Brecht, Grotowski, Joan Littlewood, Viola Spolin and Peter Brook. The Gurus podcast aims to tell the whole story.
Alongside the history are conversations between series creator, Jeff Zinn, and some of today’s most accomplished and talented working actors, directors, teachers and scholars, including Alfre Woodard, Cherry Jones, Alan Ruck, BD Wong, Michael Cerveris, Jessica Pimentel, Laura Esterman, Neal Huff, Mary Lou Rosato, David Patrick Kelly... and the list is growing.
Hearing these actors describe their craft and journey of training in detail offers the perfect crucible for understanding our moment in history, at the confluence of two historic channels of practice.
"Actors Are Everywhere" Video Trailer