Andreas manolikakis biography

A History of The Actors Studio

Written by Andreas Manolikakis

The Actors Studio was founded in New York by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford and Robert Lewis in 1947. For seven decades it has been devoted to the service and development of theatre artists –actors, directors and playwrights. To our members, who are primarily actors, The Actors Studio offers free lifetime membership, with no fee or tuition required, which entitles them to a unique opportunity to explore and improve their craft in a safe, laboratory environment with colleagues with whom they share the same process of work.

The roots of The Actors Studio go back to the Group Theatre (1931-1941) whose work was inspired by the discoveries of the great Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavski and his best student Eugene Vakhtangov as revealed in the legendary productions that the Moscow Art Theatre toured in America in 1923. In fact Stanislavski’s dedication to his book, ‘My Life in Art,’ (1924) reads: “I DEDICATE THIS BOOK IN GRATITUDE TO HOSPITABLE AMERICA AS A TOKEN AND A REMEMBRANCE FROM THE MOSCOW ART THEATRE WHICH SHE TOOK SO KINDLY TO HER HEART.”

When the Moscow Art Theatre ended its American tour, several members of the theatre stayed behind and trained artists, including Lee Strasberg, Harold Clurman and Stella Adler, who would go on to form the Group Theatre along with other artists such as Elia Kazan, Sanford Meisner and Robert Lewis. These artists studied, explored, developed and improved the work of the Russian masters with extraordinary results that were unique in the history of the American theatre and a new kind of acting was born.

After the Group Theatre closed, in 1941, many of its members went their separate ways. Elia Kazan has stated that one of the principal reasons he created The Actors Studio, in 1947, was in order to preserve and develop this new American acting. He wanted to create a not-for-profit organization that would provide a laboratory, a private workshop in wh

Faculty Bio

Manolikakis was Chair of the Directing Department at the Actors Studio Drama School, where he taught acting and directing from 1995 to 2005. He has taught workshops in acting, directing and script analysis in Athens, Berlin and Paris (at the French National Film School La Femis; the Conservatoire National Superieur d’Art Dramatique; and at L’Escalier 4). He has translated into Greek and published in Athens in 1997 Nikolai Gorchakov’s Russian classic The Vakhtangov School of Stage Art, which became a required text for the Theater Department of the University of Athens. He has also given lectures on “Stanislavski and Vakhtangov,” “The Actors Studio,” “Method Acting and Greek Tragedy,” and “Method Acting and Directing” at L’Escalier 4 in Paris; the University of Athens; the National Theater and the University of Northern Greece; the Drama School of the National Theater of Greece; and the National Organization of Theater Studies in Athens. As a director and as an actor, he has worked in the United States and Europe. Among his directing highlights are: Porte Close, by N. Darmon, at the National Theatre of East Paris; Elektra, by Sophocles, at the Actors Studio; Liliom, by F. Molnar, in Athens. Among his acting highlights are: on Broadway opposite Sir Derek Jacobi in Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code; and a leading role in the feature film Ice House, opposite Melissa Gilbert. He directed and acted in numerous plays from the Greek and international repertoire for the New Hellenic Stage of New York, which he founded in 1983. He is also the author of The Classmates, a 13-episode television series produced by the National Greek Television ET3. He holds a BA in acting from the Greek Art Theatre Drama School in Athens, founded by Karolos Koun, and an MA in theater from the University of Paris VIII-Vincennes. He also studied with Marcel Marceau at his International School of Mime in Paris. At the Actors Studio, he is a Lifetime Member and a member of the Board o