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IN 1984, THE DIRECTOR PETER GILL established the National Theatre Studio in what had been the Old Vic's Annex on The Cut in London. It was intended to act as ''the research and development'' wing of the National Theatre, with a wide brief that included ''commissioning writers, developing directors and designers, investigating nontext-based work, and producing work for the main house,'' but I want, here, to explore what Gill called ''the practice and analysis of acting skills,'' which, he argued, ''seemed an essential part of any program of work that was in part connected with process.''1 I want to do so mainly because this aspect of the Studio's work seems to have fallen off its agenda in the thirty years since it was established by Gill.
Today, The National Theatre's Web site advertises the Studio's activities as: ''courses and training'' intended to ''help create a more practical and inspired generation of directors,'' ''project development [ . . . ] on projects intended for the National Theatre's main stages,'' ''developing and supporting writers and new writing for the theatre''-all of which echo Gill's initial list-as well as the provision of Staff Directors for the National Theatre's productions.2 Not only is ''the practice and analysis of acting skills'' absent from this list, it seems to have been positively excluded from it. The words ''actor,'' ''acting,'' ''performer'' and ''performing'' do not feature at all in the Studio's description of ''what we do.'' The Studio offers about twenty-five ''attachments'' every year ''to a variety of artists,'' who may be ''writers, directors, choreographers and designers,'' but may not, apparently, be actors. Since skill and art were synonymous for centuries, it seems likely that the neglect of ''acting skills'' and the exclusion of actors from the realm of artistry are not unrelated. It is my purpose here to show, however, that a more thorough understanding of the nature and operation of skill may enable both practice and scholarship to resist this state of affairs and bring us to a renewed appreciation of the artistry of the actor.
Returning to Gill's statement of the NT Studio's purpose, there is evidence that appreciation and understanding of the actor's skill was already in decline. The Studio's commitment to developing the actors' skills occupies the...