Vilnius Actors Studio

12/09/2025

✨ Introduction to Meisner Acting Technique by Steven Ditmyer ✨

On behalf of Vilnius Actors Studio, we invite you to the free 3-hour Introduction to the Meisner Technique, one of the leading and most complete acting techniques in the Western world, which will take place in Vilnius on Sunday, September 14th, evening, 7-10 pm.

Many of the most distinguished actors were trained in the Meisner Technique, including Robert Duvall, Gregory Peck, Eli Wallach, Diane Keaton, Grace Kelly, James Gandolfini, Naomi Watts, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tom Cruise, Sandra Bullock, writers Arthur Miller and David Mamet, among others. The Meisner Technique was developed by Sanford Meisner at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he taught for more than 50 years, and where Steven Ditmyer had the privilege of being one of his students.

The technique is based on truth. Meisner said, 'Acting is the ability to live truthfully under given imaginary circumstances.' There are many acting techniques, and the ones that are valid will help you arrive at the one ultimate truth, your truth. The work you will do together with Steven is aimed at leading you to acting with a deep personal meaning, a wonderful simplicity, and to a level of working where technique disappears and what remains is you in your acting.

The event is composed of a lecture part and exercises for volunteers.

Steven Ditmyer is an internationally renowned director and acting coach from New York City, who has worked with Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin and Arthur Miller, among others. Also trained by Uta Hagen, Steven has been sharing his knowledge internationally in many cities around the world. New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Helsinki, Rome, Vienna, Warsaw, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, Bogota, Tallinn, and Vilnius, to name a few.

Event in English
The event is part of the Improvisation in Film, Master of Film Art Artistic Research project at the National Film School (KIMO). Please register at [email protected]
Limited seats available.
Time: Sunday, September 14th, evening, 7-10 pm
Venue: LMTA National Film School (KIMO), 207 auditorium

S. Ditmeyer will also be conducting a workshop at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (LMTA) Department of Acting and Directing, which is the primary purpose of the collaboration with LMTA.

10/05/2025

Five days of intense Meisner/Strasberg/Adler training by our long-time friend & tutor, Barry Primus, aimed to evoke truthful performances. Starting his acting career with Elia Kazan and Harold Clurman, Barry has worked with Martin Scorsese, Sydney Pollack, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro.

Singing songs from childhood, relaxing, doing a lot of sensory work, being in contact with our partners, constantly asking ourselves how we feel and why it is so, learning to use our impulses, be it from ourselves, our partner, or the air conditioner. Applying it all to acting in the legendary film scenes. Thank you, dear Barry Primus, for teaching us to get away from niceties to our darker sides and reminding us to constantly correct ourselves if we are not delivering what we want artistically.

Barry has taught acting and directing at the American Film Institute, The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute - New York, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), among others. Barry is a member of The Actors Studio in New York. Vilnius Actors Studio was created after his workshop in 2017 as a lab to practise the major acting techniques. 🎉

Five days of intense Meisner/Strasberg/Adler training by our long-time friend & tutor, Barry Primus, aimed to evoke truthful performances.

Starting his acting career with Elia Kazan and Harold Clurman, Barry has worked with Martin Scorsese, Sydney Pollack, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro, among others ✨

03/02/2025

Crafting private moments from The Method Acting Exercises Handbook.

Strasberg told that he devised the Private Moment Exercise from Stanislavski’s comment that one of the necessary conditions for acting is to be “private in public”. However, he emphasized that one of the elements that constitutes a Private Moment is that you would never admit to what you’re doing.

“Actors like to write in their diaries as a Private Moment, but most of the time it isn’t that private, because they wouldn’t lie about doing it. If you fanatically hid your diary, then it could work”.

We will add it all to the scenes during our next Monday training.

01/01/2025

Interesting roles for 2025! Beware of your acting habits and play more notes! Resonance from the recent Ivana Chubbuck workshop in Prague ✨

It’s your story.

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20/06/2024

Happy after re-brushing and newly experiencing Meisner Intensive training with Steven Ditmyer from Meisner International. Level IV – Relationships. ✨

“All relationships are based on how you feel about the other person. And more than that: our feelings always come to the surface in response to some specific event or fact that happened before. A lot of life in your acting will be stimulated by clearly defined relationships. You see, there is a big difference between the formal and the acting relationships; an acting relationship must be specifically defined. If it isn’t, it will only lead you to general behavior. If you say, “This character is my best friend”, you must ask yourself, why specifically is he my best friend, and, as always, you must use your imagination to relate this to something that has real meaning to you”, Steven Ditmyer, an alumnus of Sanford Meisner.

There is no one description of what it means to be a brother and sister, a child and a parent, lovers or partners. Think of the quality, most meaningful to you, a person has that no other on Earth has, and give it to your partner. Is it a passion, or compassion that rings your bell? Maybe the person makes you feel complete? All kinds of relationships are possible and working with how the person makes you feel, what makes you love someone, turns you on with someone, makes you care for someone, will allow you to explore all kinds of personal meanings.

After the summer holiday, the studio plans to return with new members onboard! 🙌

27/11/2023

Meisner Intensive Workshop 9 with Steven Ditmyer finished. 💪
Advanced scene work - actions and super objectives. You may be wondering: “But if we are thinking about actions all the time, won’t that interfere with our moment-to-moment work?”

“You won’t be thinking about your actions because you will have worked those out ahead of time. That way you can put your attention on your partner and let your partner’s behavior take you for a ride, the same way you’ve done all along. You’ll still work from unanticipated moment to unanticipated moment”, commented Steven. And the scenes went off collecting our applause and moments of complete silence. It’s not easy work, but it’s worth the journey. ✨

05/06/2023

Season is successfully finished. Looking forward to advanced Meisner scene work (actions and super objectives) with SHOWCASE performance on August 1. Stay tuned ✨

Steven Ditmyer who worked with Al Pacino, Arthur Miller, Tony Randall, Ron Rifkin, Sam Waterston, Diane Wiest, Blythe Danner will help us make it happen.

| *edit. Showcase performance moved to Autumn. Summer holidays until September at the studio.

27/03/2023

“You’ve got to trust that it’s there even when you don’t believe it’s there. Because it’s there.”—David Mamet. Happy World Theatre Day! 🎭

06/03/2023

Exhausted, but content. New skills in exploring drugs and alcohol without rehab, prison or death. Meisner Workshop VIII by Steven Ditmyer. Physical life, emotional life and the technical approach of creating the character under the influence.

“You must simply turn up the volume on parts of yourself that are normally quiet“, Sanford Meisner. It takes decades to make it look simple.

21/12/2022

Glad after Barry Primus' workshop for actors and actresses, directors and directresses. ✨🎬 A conversation with Barry Primus on working with Elia Kazan, a legendary American film and theatre director:

“He (Elia Kazan) was always looking for ways to help each actor, which had to do with who they were and what they needed. Once, on the first day of rehearsals for The Changling, I was extremely nervous and stiff and not able to really listen, talk, or do anything. I was full of ideas but none of them were really happening. I wasn’t really there. He saw that I was watching him nervously a lot and after one of the rehearsals he said, “I just want to give you this note. I started this play with you and I will end this play with you. Whatever you do, I will never fire you, so don’t be nervous about that.” (…)

I remember playing a very flamboyant character that was a Moor. Because it took place in sixteenth-century Spain, I wanted a very certain look. So, I used a lot of pictures of Velasquez and Goya and bullfighting pictures. I would rehearse and just play the bullfighter sometimes. Once, I was working on something and he said, “What exactly are you doing?” I was doing a picture exercise, trying to re-create the photo I had by working with a mirror to bring it to the world of the play, but it was very slow. When I told him he said, “Oh, well, good.” It must have looked very odd to the other actors. It might have been annoying to another actor, but he said that it sounded good and thought it was creative and with that he signed off. Even though he didn’t really understand it at the moment, he knew I was exploring something. (…)

I would try a lot of things and he’d jump to his feet and shout, “I love that. I love that, Barry.” I once did an improvisation for him in which I expressed my feelings about being an actor and telling people to go f**k themselves. I was combining my personal rebellion with the character that was a rebel. As I said things about Hollywood, he’d say, “I love you, Barry” and run over and punch me in the arm as a sign of affection. Who doesn’t want to work with a director like that?

Working with a good director is always a mystery, because what you are responding to is what he is. Finally, good work is the result of character and personality, and Kazan had a very specific character and personality. He was highly charged and very dynamic. (…)

Even when he was worried about some of the actors, he did not share that. He shared, “We will get there. We had a bad day but tomorrow we will have a better one.”

(…) it once again was a sign of his confidence in me, which is what every actor needs most.”

An excerpt from Delia Salvi's book “Friendly Enemies: Maximizing the Director-Actor Relationship”

08/11/2022

This autumn we trained acting muscle with Dominic Murphy, who over thirty years has directed factual TV, commercials, features and experimental film. He has worked with Brad Pitt, Carrie Fisher and won multiple awards including two Gold Lions at Cannes Lions, teaching us to tell a detailed and engaging story in a tiny timeframe. Now we are looking forward to Meisner Intensive Level 7 with Steven Ditmeyer, who has worked with Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin and Arthur Miller. All our friends in Vilnius - we invite you to a free taster - Introduction to Meisner Acting Technique by Steven Ditmyer, held in partnership with Scanorama. Afterward we will have a small reception to discuss how to live in the moment! Looking forward to meeting you soon. The registration link is provided in the comments.

02/08/2022

Happy after Meisner Level VI training. Blind, deaf, and crippled. Delving into character work 💪✨

“Playing yourself – straight acting – can lead to commercial success for some actors but make no mistake, this is a limitation. You won’t be able to bring the greatest roles to life from writers such as O’Neill, Pinter and Tennessee Williams using only straight acting.”

Blind or deaf, still have to hear, see and feel the partner.