Editing Stanislavski's system (section)

===Opera—Dramatic Studio===
Near the end of his life Stanislavski created an Opera—Dramatic Studio in his own apartment on [[Leontievski Lane]] (now known as "Stanislavski Lane"), under the auspices of which between 1935 and 1938 he offered a significant course in the system in its final form.<ref>Benedetti (1998, xii-xiii) and (1999, 359–360).</ref>

Given the difficulties he had with completing his manual for actors, in 1935 while recuperating in [[Nice]] 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 he began to instruct a group of teachers in the training techniques of the 'system' and the rehearsal processes of the Method of Physical Action.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 360) and Magarshack (1950, 388–391). Stanislavski taught them again in the autumn.</ref> The teachers had some previous experience studying the system as private students of Stanislavski's sister, Zinaïda.<ref name="Benedetti 1999a, 363">Benedetti (1999a, 363).</ref> His wife, Lilina, also joined the teaching staff.<ref>Magarshack (1950, 391).</ref> Twenty students (out of 3500 who had auditioned) were accepted for the dramatic section of the Opera—Dramatic Studio, where classes began on 15 November 1935.<ref>Benedetti (1999a, 362–363).</ref> Its members included the future artistic director of the MAT, [[Mikhail Nikolayevich Kedrov|Mikhail Kedrov]], who played [[Tartuffe]] in Stanislavski's unfinished production of [[Molière]]'s play (which, after Stanislavski's death, he completed).<ref>Solovyova (1999, 355–356).</ref>

Jean Benedetti argues that the course at the Opera—Dramatic Studio is "Stanislavski's true testament."<ref>Benedetti (1998, xii). His book ''Stanislavski and the Actor'' (1998) offers a reconstruction of that course.</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 on Himself'' and two of that in ''An Actor's Work on a Role''.<ref name="Benedetti 1999a, 363"/> 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 name=benedetti368>Benedetti (1999a, 368).</ref> He "insisted that they work on classics, because, 'in any work of genius you find an ideal logic and progression.'"<ref name=benedetti368/> 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 name=benedetti369>Benedetti (1999a, 368–369).</ref> "They must avoid at all costs," Benedetti explains, "merely repeating the externals of what they had done the day before."<ref name=benedetti368/>