No one has had a greater influence on acting as we know it than Stanislavski. His `method` - or interpretations of it - has become the central force determining almost every performance we see on stage or screen.

In My Life in Art Stanislavski recalls his theatrical career, from his early experiences in Rubinstein`s Russian Musical Society to his final triumphs with Chekhov at the Moscow Art Theatre. His vivid accounts of his own most famous productions including `The Seagul` and `Uncle Vanya` are interspersed with anecdotes of the famous - of Kommisarjevksy, Tolstoy, Gorky, and of the Moscow visit of Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig.
Table of contents
I Old Russia
II Family Life
III Struggles with Obstinacy
IV Value of Childish Impressions
V Play Days
VI Our Home Theatre
VII A Suddenly Discovered Talent
VIII Russian Dramatic Schools
IX The Little Theatre
X The Conservatory
XI Anton Rubenstein
XII Attempts in Operettas
XIII The Opera
XIV The Mamontov Circle
XV The Society of Art and Literature
XVI Fundamentals of Art Material
XVII Marriage
XVIII Character Parts
XIX Genius of Director Kronek
XX First Experience as a Director
XXI Lev Tolstoy
XXII “Uriel Acosta”
XXIII “The Polish Jew”
XXIV The Professional Theatre
XXV New Stage Effects
XXVI Tommaso Salvini The Elder
XXVII Othello
XXVIII Meeting with Nemirovich-Danchenko
XXIX My summer in Pushkino
XXX The Founding of the Moscow Art Theatre
XXXI The Productions of the Moscow Art Theatre
XXXII The Line of the Fantastic
XXXIII Symbolism and Impressionism
XXXIV “The Seagul”
XXXV “Uncle Vanya”
XXXVI The Journey to the Crimea in 1900
XXXVII “The Three Sisters”
XXXVIII The First Journey to Petrograd
XXXIX Journeys to the Provinces
XL The Line of Social and Political Moods
XLI “The Power of Darkness” and “The Enemy of the People”
XLII Julius Cæsar
XLIII The Last Year with Chekhov
XLIV “The Cherry Orchard”
XLV The Studio on Povarskaya
XLVI Our First Journey Abroad
XLVII The Cabbage Parties
XLVIII The Beginnings of My System
XLIX Leopold Sulerjitsky
L “ The Drama of Life”
LI Disappointments
LII “The Life of Man”
LIII A Visit to Maeterlinck
LIV Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig
LV The First Studio
LVI The Founding of the First Studio
LVII “A Month in the Country”
LVIII The War
LIX The Second Revolution
LX The Opera Studio
LXI My Life in Art

Appendices
List of the Productions of the Alexeiev Circle
List of the Productions of the Society of Art and Literature
List of the Productions of the Moscow Art Theatre
Index

Constantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) was a Russian director who sought `inner realism` by insisting that his actors find the truth within themselves and `become` the characters they portrayed. His work brought international fame to the Moscow Art Theatre, which he had co-founded with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko in 1897. During his early years at the Moscow Art Theatre, he directed the first productions of Chekhov`s Uncle Vanya (1899), Three Sisters (1901) and The Cherry Orchard (1904) as well as a series of celebrated versions of Shakespeare. Stanislavski toured America with the company in 1923. After World War II, the US edition of Stanislavski`s treatise An Actor Prepares (1926) became a bible of the Method school of acting.