Editing Konstantin Stanislavski (section)

==Final work at the Opera-Dramatic Studio==
[[File:Konstantin Stanislavski in 1938.jpg|thumb|right|275px|Stanislavski at work in the final year of his life.]]

Given the difficulties he had with completing his manual for actors, Stanislavski decided that he needed to found a new studio if he was to ensure his legacy.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 359) and Magarshack (1950, 387).</ref> "Our school will produce not just individuals," he wrote, "but a whole company".<ref>Letter to Elizabeth Hapgood, quoted in Benedetti (1999a, 363).</ref> In June 1935, he began to instruct a group of teachers in the training techniques of the [[Stanislavski's system|system]] and the rehearsal processes of the Method of Physical Action.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 360), Magarshack (1950, 388–391), and Whyman (2008, 136).</ref> Twenty students (out of 3,500 auditionees) were accepted for the dramatic section of the Opera-Dramatic Studio, where classes began on 15 November.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 362–363).</ref> Stanislavski arranged a curriculum of four years of study that focused exclusively on technique and method—two years of the work detailed later in ''An Actor's Work'' and two of that in ''An Actor's Work on a Role''.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 363) and Whyman (2008, 136).</ref>

Once the students were acquainted with the training techniques of the first two years, Stanislavski selected ''[[Hamlet]]'' and ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' for their work on roles.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 368) and Magarshack (1950, 397–399). He "insisted that they work on classics, because, 'in any work of genius you find an ideal logic and progression'."</ref> He worked with the students in March and April 1937, focusing on their sequences of physical actions, on establishing their through-lines of action, and on rehearsing scenes anew in terms of the actors' tasks.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 368–369). "They must avoid at all costs", Benedetti explains, "merely repeating the externals of what they had done the day before."</ref> By June 1938 the students were ready for their first public showing, at which they performed a selection of scenes to a small number of spectators.<ref>Magarshack (1950, 400).</ref> The Opera-Dramatic Studio embodied the most complete implementation of the training exercises that Stanislavski described in his manuals.<ref name=ODS/>

From late 1936 onwards, Stanislavski began to meet regularly with [[Vsevolod Meyerhold]], with whom he discussed the possibility of developing a common theatrical language.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 368–369).</ref> In 1938, they made plans to work together on a production and discussed a synthesis of Stanislavski's Method of Physical Action and Meyerhold's [[Biomechanics (Meyerhold)|biomechanical]] training.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 371–373).</ref> On 8 March, Meyerhold took over the rehearsals for ''[[Rigoletto]]'', the staging of which he completed after Stanislavski's death.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 371, 373) and Whyman (2008, 136).</ref> On his death-bed Stanislavski declared to Yuri Bakhrushin that Meyerhold was "my sole heir in the theatre—here or anywhere else".<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 373), Leach (2004, 23), and Rudnitsky (1981, xv).</ref> [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin's]] [[NKVD|police]] tortured and killed Meyerhold in February 1940.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 373).</ref>

Stanislavski died in his home at 3:45&nbsp;pm on 7 August 1938, having probably suffered another heart-attack five days earlier.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 374) and Magarshack (1950, 404).</ref> Thousands of people attended his funeral.<ref>Magarshack (1950, 404).</ref> Three weeks after his death his widow, Lilina, received an advanced copy of the Russian-language edition of the first volume of ''An Actor's Work''—the "labour of his life", as she called it.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 375).</ref> Stanislavski was buried in the [[Novodevichy Cemetery]] in Moscow, not far from the grave of [[Anton Chekhov]].<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 376) and Magarshack (1950, 404).</ref>