Book 1: Boleslavsky's Acting: The First Six Lessons. Chapter 1: Concentration. Part 2

The education of an actor consists of 3 parts.

1. Talent & Technique. The education of his body, the whole physical apparatus, of every muscle and sinew. An hour and a half daily on the following exercises: gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, classical and interpretive dancing, fencing, all kinds of breathing exercises, voice-placing exercises, diction, singing, pantomime, make-up. An hour an a half for two years with steady practice afterwards in what you have acquired will make an actor pleasing to look at.

2. Intellectual and cultural. One can discuss Shakespeare, Moliere, Goethe, and Calderon only with a cultured actor who knows what these men stand for and what has been done in thwarted of the world to produce their plays. ...an actor who knows the world's literature and who can see the difference between German and French Romanticism. ...an actor who knows the history of painting, of sculpture and of music, who can always carry in his mind, the style of every period, and the individuality of every great painter. ...an actor who has a fairly clear idea of the psychology of motion, of psychoanalysis, of the expression of emotion, and the logic of feeling. ...an actor who knows something of the anatomy of the human body, as well as of the great works of sculpture. All this knowledge is necessary because the actor comes in contact with these things, and has to work with them on the stage. This intellectual training would make an actor who could play a great variety of parts.

3. The Education and Training of the Soul. The most important factor of dramatic action. An actor cannot exist without a soul developed enough to be able to accomplish, at the first command of the will, every action and change stipulated. ...the actor must have a soul capable of living through any situation demanded by the author. There is no great actor without such a soul. ...it is acquired by long, hard work, at great expense of time and experience, and through a series of experimental part.

The work for this consists in the development of the following faculties: complete possession of all the five senses in various imaginable situations; development of a memory of feeling, memory of inspiration or penetration, memory of imagination, and, last, a visual memory.