ART, Moscow Theatre School Will Offer Joint Training Program

Students at Harvard's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training will now have the opportunity to study at the world-renowned Moscow Art Theatre School (MXAT) through its first-ever affiliation with an American school.

Robert Brustein, the artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre and the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training (ART), and Oleg Tabakov, head of the MXAT, announced yesterday a partnership between their institutions that will feature a two-year, full-time, five-semester training program.

Participants will study acting, directing and theater management under master teachers from Moscow and Cambridge.

According to Brustein, American students will benefit from the tutelage of those who learned the famous Stansilavsky technique system--a dramatic style characterized by the actor's personal identification with the role--from its creator, the Russian theater innovator Constantin Stanislavsky.

"Our training [at the ART] has always been based on the Stanislavsky method," Brustein said. "Now we'll have the people whom Stanislavsky actually taught passing his method along to our students."

Robert Orchard, managing director at the ART, said he was excited about having "master teachers from Russia present for the whole two-year program."

Participants will begin their study with summer and fall semesters in Cambridge. They will then spend the spring in Moscow before returning for two additional semesters at Harvard.

Mindful of his commitments at the ART and to undergraduates, Brustein said he would "go and visit the students in Moscow from time to time."

While American pupils will reap the rewards of studying Stanislavsky with the Muscovites, Russian students will gain from exposure to American practices such as verse-writing, according to Brustein.

"This program bounces the Institute into the ranks of the top training schools," Brustein said.

The ART has never been able to offer degrees to its students, but participants in the joint program will receive Master of Fine Arts Degrees from the MXAT.

Tuition fees will cover the costs of travel and housing in Moscow and Cambridge. The program's first deadline for admission applications is Jan. 19. Acting students will be accepted based on audition performances; interviews will determine the admission of directors and theater managers.

Brustein said of the prospective participants, "Everyone I've spoken to is incredibly excited."