New York, NY – The Stella Adler Studio of Acting has announced Embracing Compassion Week (March 20 – 24), which will include several events and performances at the Studio and coincides with the Studio’s participation in the Embracing Compassion – Lives of the Dalai Lama exhibition, an international project honoring sacred Tibetan art and the 14 incarnations of the Dalai Lama. A series of thangkas, paintings used by Tibetan Buddhists in their meditations, commissioned by His Holiness the 14 th Dalai Lama, is currently touring the U.S. The artworks will be presented to him on March 20 and reproductions will be on display at the Studio, as well as at other sites all over the world, throughout the week.
The week will also include performances from artists from across the globe. The Studio will host a jazz concert with the Ned Otter Jazz Quartet on Monday, March 20, as part of the David Oppenheim Concert Series, as well as a concert by German pianist and composer Leon Gurvitch on March 21 and a reading by current poet-in- residence Yusef Komunyakaa and concert by Japanese pianist Noriko Kamo on March 23. All events are free and open to the public. “Theater is an ancient art form devoted to telling stories that reflect humanity to itself, and an actor’s job is to imagine being in the shoes of another person. No matter how much an actor disagrees with their character’s choices, they must find a non-judgmental way of giving life to them,” said Tom Oppenheim, Artistic Director, Stella Adler Studio of Acting. “The muscle this exercises for actor and audience alike is the muscle of compassion—that is, the capacity to feel the pain of or to suffer with another or others. This particular aspect of Stella’s technique is deeply sensitizing.”
The Studio’s participation in this project aligns with its mission of creating an environment that nurtures theater artists and audiences who value humanity, their own and others, as their first priority, while bringing art and education to the greater community. This mission is based on the insight that growth as an actor and growth as a human being are synonymous.
From its roots in the Yiddish Theatre tradition, brought to New York City by Jacob Adler and carried forward by Stella, the Stella Adler Studio of Acting has always strived to create a space where artists and audiences are called to deeply investigate and nurture their shared humanity. The practice of compassion that plays such a central role in the life and work of the Dalai Lama is also therefore at the heart of the theater and at the core of the mission of the Stella Adler Studio.