page_title: Konstantin Stanislavski
section_title: Creation of the Moscow Art Theatre
hierarchical_section_title: Konstantin Stanislavski / Creation of the Moscow Art Theatre
caption_attribution_description: English: Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko Русский: Владимир Иванович Немирович-Данченко
context_page_description: Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski was a seminal Russian theatre practitioner. He was widely recognised as an outstanding character actor and the many productions that he directed garnered him a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his 'system' of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique.
  Stanislavski performed and directed as an amateur until the age of 33, when he co-founded the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre company with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, following a legendary 18-hour discussion. Its influential tours of Europe and the US and its landmark productions of The Seagull and Hamlet established his reputation and opened new possibilities for the art of the theatre. By means of the MAT, Stanislavski was instrumental in promoting the new Russian drama of his day—principally the work of Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, and Mikhail Bulgakov—to audiences in Moscow and around the world; he also staged acclaimed productions of a wide range of classical Russian and European plays.
context_section_description: Stanislavski's historic meeting with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko on 4 July [O.S. 22 June] 1897 led to the creation of what was called initially the "Moscow Public-Accessible Theatre", but which came to be known as the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). Their eighteen-hour-long discussion has acquired a legendary status in the history of theatre.
  Nemirovich was a successful playwright, critic, theatre director, and acting teacher at the Philharmonic school who, like Stanislavski, was committed to the idea of a popular theatre. Their abilities complemented one another: Stanislavski brought his directorial talent for creating vivid stage images and selecting significant details; Nemirovich, his talent for dramatic and literary analysis, his professional expertise, and his ability to manage a theatre. Stanislavski later compared their discussions to the Treaty of Versailles, their scope was so wide-ranging; they agreed on the conventional practices they wished to abandon and, on the basis of the working method they found they had in common, defined the policy of their new theatre.
  Stanislavski and Nemirovich planned a professional company with an ensemble ethos that discouraged individual vanity; they would create a realistic theatre of international renown, with popular prices for seats, whose organically unified aesthetic would bring together the techniques of the Meiningen Ensemble and those of André Antoine's Théâtre Libre (which Stanislavski had seen during trips to Paris). Nemirovich assumed that Stanislavski would fund the theatre as a privately owned business, but Stanislavski insisted on a limited, joint stock company. Viktor Simov, whom Stanislavski had met in 1896, was engaged as the company's principal designer.
  In his opening speech on the first day of rehearsals, 26 June [O.S. 14 June] 1898, Stanislavski stressed the "social character" of their collective undertaking. In an atmosphere more like a university than a theatre, as Stanislavski described it, the company was introduced to his working method of extensive reading and research and detailed rehearsals in which the action was defined at the table before being explored physically. Stanislavski's lifelong relationship with Vsevolod Meyerhold began during these rehearsals; by the end of June, Meyerhold was so impressed with Stanislavski's directorial skills that he declared him a genius.
caption: Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, co-founder of the MAT, in 1916.
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