Sanford Meisner was a chain smoker.  He would light the next from the first and so on.  He saved on matches, but it killed him in the end.  Later in life cancer took his larynx.  He spoke through a hole in his throat with the swallow and burp method.  They outfitted him with a neck mic and speaker so he could continue to teach.  He then continued to smoke through the hole in his throat.  That was Sandy – obstinate and determined to do it his way.  A man of strong will.

Nobody ever held a cigarette like Sandy.  It was his life prop.  It reflected in multifarious ways his mood, his personality, his joie de vivre.  Sometimes it was an exclamation point, sometimes a pointer, sometimes a sword.  It’s hard to think of this man without cigarette in hand, smoke curling around him.

For me as a teacher or director, one of his greatest teachings was to never show an actor what result you want by performing the moment for him or never give the actor a line reading (speak the line the way you want it read).  You must help the actors discover the meanings and moments for themselves, not do the work for them so that then they copy you.  Only as a total last resort should you ever give a line reading or act the moment for them and when you reach that moment, you can consider yourself a failure as a director.  Though often tempting, I have tried to follow this bit of wisdom always.  Actors always respect me for it.  It puts them in charge of their own character development.

On extremely rare circumstances, when he was trying to illuminate a point, when frustration with our numbskull minds got the best of him, he would go very silent sitting at his desk in class.  We, the class, would wait on baited breath for the master to speak.  Eons would pass.  Then he would disgustingly mash out the glow of his ever present cigarette in his ever present ash tray.  This could take a full minute.  But it would signal the hope in us that Mr. Meisner was going to get up and demonstrate for us some moment of acting.  Then he would, again disgustingly, slowly, push his chair back and rise to his feet as if the world were on his shoulders and walk to the middle of the room, turn and face the class.

Then Sanford Meisner would act.  Rarely would he speak.  He would simply do the moment in question with the reality and force of a howitzer.  His commitment to the moment would be of such impact that we would all either burst into gales of laughter or sobs of tears – and he did it every time.  He understood his own technique so well, and it worked so well, that these little moments of insight were moments of extreme light.  He was a great actor who didn’t act; he was a great teacher who taught.

He was the best pure educator I ever had.  I never hung on anyone’s words the way I did Sandy’s.  He could be mean, charming, hilarious, cut throat, prescient, and silly all within a single minute.  It would have been impossible (and life-threatening) to fall asleep in one of his classes.  His rules were simply clear and honored.  Miss a class and you’re out.  Be late for Mr. Meisner’s class and everything stops while you make your abashed entrance; all eyes turn to you, the actor who doesn’t really care deeply about his craft, his art, and so has the gall to arrive late to this chance of a lifetime opportunity to study with Mr. Meisner.

But, you know, it worked.  I never worked harder for a man.  I never applied myself with such commitment to a task.  I loved this man through all his faults and foibles because of the largess of his being, the scope of his mind, the depth of his doing.  He was really my first close-at-hand experience with greatness and I was blessed to be in the same room over and over again with his wisdom and spirit.

The Neighborhood Playhouse is a potential two year course.  Out of 100 first year students, 25 are invited back for the second year.  You live the first year in dire anticipation of this life determining moment.  Will I get asked back?  Do I have the stuff to make it in this business?  Am I really talented?

Towards the end of my first year I auditioned on a whim for the New Christy Minstrel Singers, a popular folk singing group at the time.  I was offered a year contract to tour the world.  It would mean a huge break and accelerated start to my career in show biz.  It would also mean that if I were to get invited back to the Playhouse, I would not be able to finish the two year course.  With great trepidation and some confusion, I took the decision to Mr. Meisner.  He listened intently, then went into his usual thoughtful silence and then spoke.  He told me that I would be invited back.  That the New Christy Minstrel Singers was just a job, but that the 2nd year at the Playhouse was a lifetime of information that would get me 1000 jobs over the next 5 decades.  He was right.  I turned down the New Christy Minstrel Singers and continued actually 3 more years of study with this man.  It was a momentous decision in my life and I made the right one.

Once, during my first year, he asked me to be his assistant as he directed the final second year production of Dark Of The Moon starring Richard Pinter (who now is the principle acting teacher at the Playhouse) and a young, radiant second year student named Diane Hall, who later changed her name to Diane Keaton and went on to have a promising career in the movies.  One night Sandy was having trouble communicating to the ensemble the shape and flow of the scene he was directing.  It was late.  Everyone was tired and ornery.  They rehearsed the scene again and again never pleasing a frustrated Meisner.  Finally, he stopped the scene in progress.  He said, “No, no, no, let’s try something else here.  I want you to do the scene with no dialogue.  Just do the moments with no words.  Just do the doings and follow me.  Everybody looked at him wearily like he was nuts.

He walked over to the piano, sat down and said, “OK, begin.”  Then he improvised the emotional moments of the scene on the piano and they followed and performed those moments to the music.  It was magical.  He had studied concert piano and played beautifully and with great passion.  He showed them, through the music, the shape, the emotional rises and falls of the scene, where the pace should pick up, where it should slow.  When they were through, everyone on stage was so wrung out that they all just sat and wept.  Then in his inimitable terse style he said, “That’s right.  Now go home.”  The scene was “concretized” (one of his favorite words) ever after and was the climactic moment of the play.

I was never the best actor in my class.  There were those who were the naturals, the born-to-it talents that lived for the stage.  I didn’t have that kind of talent.  I didn’t know this at the time, but of course Sandy did.  But he liked me.  I always felt that.  And after my years at the Playhouse I even got a chance to know him as a personal friend.  At one point he said, “Oh Peter, we’re not in school any more.  Call me Sandy.”  It was like God had said to me, “Come sit here on my right side.”  It took months for me to be able to do so.  I had to practice saying it on my own.  “Sandy, Sandy.”  It never really felt right.  He would always be Mr. Meisner to me.