[3] It was founded in 1923 by former Moscow Art Theatre members Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya and stressed Stanislavski's system as its teaching method.
[4][5] Students were taught to be uninhibited, with exercises such as acting as a fish under water, a melting ice cream cone, or (for women) the mother of a sick child praying to the Madonna.
[6] Both actors and directors were trained, and Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaya became known as the leading promulgators of Stanislavski's ideas in America.
[7] These included Lee Strasberg, Harold Clurman, and Stella Adler, all of whom would go on to exert a great influence on American acting.
[2] Its productions included well-known works by William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, and Anton Chekhov,[6] but also included well-regarded instantiations of modern and avant-garde works such as Jean-Jacques Bernard's Martine and Arthur Schnitzler's The Bridal Veil.