Earnest, Steve

About the author: Steve Earnest holds a PhD from the University of Colorado, and is a member of Actors' Equity Association, Screen Actors' Guild, Southeastern Theatre Conference, and Association for Theatre in Higher Education. He is currently Assistant Professor Theatre/Director of Theatre at the School of Arts & Sciences at the State University of West Georgia. He has performed professionally in the theatre, and several film and television projects. Published articles appear in The O'Neill Review, Western European Stages, Theatre Journal, The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism and Contemporary Theatre Studies.

THE STATE ACTING ACADEMY OF EAST BERLIN:
A History of Actor Training From Max Reinhardt’s Schauspielschule to The Hochschule Für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch”

1999 0-7734-7916-3
This study deals with the establishment of Reinhardt's school, the training that took place until WWII (including the implementation of nazi officials at the institution), the program of study during the German Democratic Republic, and finally the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst "Ernst Busch". By offering a detailed account of actor training methods which existed shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the study examines the shift in emphasis from a socialist Realistic school of acting, as one of the state institutes of the GDR, to a more eclectic, broad-based approach. As witneessed in 1993, the tprofram showed the influence of Reinhardt's theories of acting as well as those of Stanislaviski and Brecht. Several of the schools' main teachers and leaders throughout its almost ninety year history are profiled, with their corresponding theoretical views included.