Meisner Trained Intro

Hi, my name's Jim Jarrett. I'm founder and director of the Meisner Technique Studio located in San Francisco, and the creator of this teaching series, Meisner Trained. The purpose of this video is for me to communicate to whoever's watching, who's ever tuning in for the first time, why I created this series and my motivations, and my qualifications to communicate this information. So first with that, I spent four years with Sanford Meisner, two in his professional private class, and then two more working privately with Sandy, both as an actor and as a teacher-in-training. This was from 1987 to 1991. I actually spent an additional two years after that before relocating from Los Angeles to the island of Hawaii, where I opened a school there. But it was during that apprenticeship period that I began teaching with Sandy's approval, guidance, and support. And now a quarter century later, that's what I've tried to do, is my very best to present Sanford Meisner and the Meisner technique exactly how he wanted it presented. We don't offer workshops or intensives or anything like that. It is exactly as I said, without trying to imitate Sandy or impersonate him, but to do our very best to present his teachings. And so the purpose of getting this information out there to anyone who may be currently studying the Meisner technique, or maybe you've studied it before and had a great experience, or a negative experience, is hopefully to offer it up as a chance for you to check in to see if what you've experienced or are experiencing resonates. I'm not the only teacher of the Meisner technique that was selected by Sandy to teach. There are some wonderful teachers out there, definitely. Heck, there are some people out there who never studied with Sandy, who studied with somebody who studied with Sandy, who are also wonderful teachers. But I can tell you that there was an enormous difference between being a student in Sandy's class and then being trained by Sandy to teach his way. And having been his last teaching protege, that doesn't make me special, anointed, gifted, anything. It just incredibly blessed, and I'm humbled at that honor and opportunity. And I've dedicated my life to doing just that, to again, presenting the Meisner technique as pure and as authentic as possible. And that leads to my motivation in doing this, because with the internet, there's just a proliferation of teachers out there who are presenting Sandy's way. And you compare, you check them out, check out what we're trying to communicate as well, and judge for yourself as to what resonates. But that's the reason for this teaching series, is to try to offer some balance, because there's a lot of information out there that isn't accurate, that is watered down, diluted. And I think the best example of that, recently I was on a teaching tour in Texas, and a teacher came up to me, and I was lost, and he said, "What are you looking for?" I told him, and he said, "You teach acting?" "Yes, I do." "What do you teach?" And I said, "The Meisner technique." And he looked at me and he said, "I was going to teach that too, but hey, everybody's doing it." And that's the truth. There's some books that came out, one before Sandy passed. Actually, both of them, sorry. The first is a book called "Sanford Meisner on Acting," it was written by Dennis Longwell. It's a biography, and it's a wonderful book. And it was designed to not be a teaching syllabus, but to really give anyone an inside peek of what it was like to be a student of Sandy's. Unfortunately, though, it is used as a teaching syllabus by a lot of people, and it's incomplete. It was never intended for that. If you read the forward at the front of the book, Sandy's very clear about his feelings on that, that he didn't feel that the Meisner technique-- he'd been asked many times to write a book about it, and he never did. And the reason why he didn't, even though he tried several times, he just concluded there's no way. It can't be done. It shouldn't be done. And yet since then, there have been several books that have come out attempting to do just that. Check them out. See what you think about them. I can tell you firsthand that Sandy was incredibly upset about those books for the very reasons that I just stated. He didn't feel that this way of working should be communicated through a book. You can, again, do what you want with that. That said, my hope through this teaching series is on a weekly basis to offer up and give you an inside peek as to the work unfolding, the progression of the exercises, and then create an archive of teachings for anyone interested to go back to and check out as well. So there it is. That's the reason for the Meisner Training teaching series. I hope that anyone watching, that it offers, like I said, some balance and perspective on the information and how it was intended to be presented. I do my very best to