AMERICAN MASTERS: STELLA ADLER: AWAKE AND DREAM! (TV)
Summary
One in this documentary series that explores the lives and achievements of America's most celebrated native-born and adopted artists and performers. This profile of acting coach Stella Adler includes interviews with Adler and with colleagues, students, and friends, along with clips from her own acting performances as well as from her classes. Highlights include the following: a discussion of the spirit of Adler's classes and her use of acting to express her desires and needs; a description of Adler's importance to inexperienced actors by actress Sheryl Sciro; a look at her New York City apartment, a shrine to her life in the theater and to the many people who have touched her life; a discussion of the amazing acting range and courage of her father, Jacob Adler; an analysis of Adler's lack of formal acting training; a description of the final theatrical performance of her mother, Sarah Adler, at the age of ninety by actor Karl Malden; and a description of Jacob Adler's funeral in 1926. This examination of Stella Adler's career also touches on such topics as her first blossoming in the theater; the urgings of her second husband that involved her in the group-theater movement, and her reaction to that movement; her experiences acting in Paris during the 1930s, described by director Robert Lewis; her experience in Hollywood, where her name was changed to Ardler in film credits, illustrated with clips from the movies "Love on Toast," "The Shadow of the Thin Man," and "My Girl Tisa"; her final Broadway performance, recalled by actor John Abbott; her experiences as an active freedom fighter when the Nazi concentration camps were liberated by the Allied forces during World War II; the longevity of her acting studio; the memorability of a first class with Adler, described by actress May Quigley; Adler's theories about actors and memory; and her unspokenness in class, discussed by producer Milton Justice. The program ends with a few clips from classes in which Adler critiques students.
Cataloging of this program was made possible by Rosalind P. Walter, 1999.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS WNET New York, NY
- DATE: November 30, 1988 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:56:32
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:58344
- GENRE: Arts documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Acting; Acting teachers; Theater
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1986-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Susan Lacy … Executive Producer
- Jack Willis … Executive Producer
- Susan Lacy … Executive Producer
- Harlene Freezer … Coordinating Producer
- Catherine Tatge … Producer
- Diane Dufault … Associate Producer
- Amy Schatz … Associate Producer, Researcher
- Jonathan Tunick … Theme Music by, Composer
- Merrill Brockway … Director
- Glenn Berenbeim … Writer
- Rue Faris Drew … Researcher
- Vera Aronow … Researcher
- Frank Langella … Narrator
- John Abbott
- Jacob Adler
- Sarah Adler
- Stella Adler
- Milton Justice
- Robert Lewis
- Karl Malden
- May Quigley
- Sheryl Sciro