Like most drama schools, Drama Centre places a particular emphasis on the work of Stanislavski,also training students in improvisation through the Vakhtangov and Lecoq traditions.
He was well versed in Eastern-influenced religious practices, informing Stanislavski about yoga, meditation and the nature of Prana.
One of the events that led to the founding of the Moscow Art Theatre was Stanislavski's acquaintance with the theatre's co-director and co-founder Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, who at the time was a well-known Russian playwright and director of the drama school of the Moscow Philharmonic Society.
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Stanislavski spends most of this section describing in dramatic detail his relationship with Anton Chekhov and the productions of Chekhov's plays, beginning with their first production of "The Seagull", which had been originally staged in St. Petersburg, and ending with their production of "The Cherry Orchard" in 1904 and Chekhov's death that same year.
The company gathered in Pushkino, where Stanislavski addressed Knipper and the other members, telling them that he hoped they had all come to dedicate their lives to creating the "first rational, moral, and universally accessible theatre in Russia."
Among his students were Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Harold Clurman, who were all founding members of the Group Theatre (1931–1940), the first American acting ensemble to utilize Stanislavski's techniques.
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In the 1920s, he made his way to New York City, where, now known as "Richard Boleslavsky" (the English spelling of his name), he began to teach Stanislavski's 'system' (which, in the US, developed into Method acting) with fellow émigré Maria Ouspenskaya.