Articulations
The Harry Ransom Center has acquired all the professional and personal materials of profoundly influential acting teacher Stella Adler
By Robert Faires, Fri., April 30, 2004
Adler Archives in Austin
Scholars of the art of acting have a new reason to come to Austin: the archive of Stella Adler. The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center has just acquired all the professional and personal materials of this profoundly influential teacher whose ideas on the craft helped shape the acting careers of Marlon Brando, Elaine Stritch, Martin Sheen, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Warren Beatty, among others. From membership in the Group Theatre in the early 1930s and studying with the Moscow Art Theatre's legendary Konstantin Stanislavsky in Paris, Adler went on to found the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting, where she taught principles of acting and character analysis to aspiring young talents for more than four decades. Included in the archive are Adler's teaching notes, lectures on script analysis and individual playwrights, and more than 700 hours of audio/visual materials, as well as extensive correspondence between Adler and Harold Clurman, the noteworthy actor, director, Group Theatre founder, and theatre critic who married Adler in 1943; Clurman's lively correspondence with intimates and colleagues from Alfred Stieglitz to Audrey Hepburn; documentation of Adler's meetings with Stanislavsky in Paris; and materials relating to the New York Yiddish Theater, where Adler launched her career in 1906 acting alongside her parents, Jacob and Sara Adler. The 20 boxes of Adler materials should be processed and made available to the public and scholars in about a year. For more information, visit www.hrc.utexas.edu.
F8 Fine Art Gallery hosts a special fundraiser for the Friends of the David Powell Health Center on Friday, April 30. The evening features music, food, cocktails, door prizes, and art for sale, with 10% of art sales to be donated to the Friends, which assists the DPHC in treating hundreds of people who have HIV/AIDS and have limited funds for health care. F8 is at 1137 W. Sixth. For more information, call 480-0242.
Azul Naranja is a benefit for the Blue Theater on Saturday, May 1. Yours truly will be emcee for all the fun, which includes jazz by Catherine Berry and Eddy Hobizal, burlesque by Kitty Kitty Bang Bang, more music by Tortured Soul from New York, tapas, cocktails, and more. Join us at the home of Greg Grosh. For more information, visit www.refractionarts.org.
Pollyanna Theatre Company and Karen Kuykendall present I'm Not the Woman I Was, a new play based on the writing of Austin author Frances Nail, on Monday, May 3, 7pm, at Arts on Real, 2826 Real. Proceeds benefit the theatre company. For information, call 743-7966.
