The principles that Harold Clurman ardently espoused have not been fully absorbed by the American theater over the past 60 years. Three of the most influential acting teachers in American history -- Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and Sanford Meisner -- were members of the Group Theater, which Clurman co-founded in 1931. The acting styles promoted by them alone have taken decades to become orthodoxy, some of which is now being questioned. But Clurman's visionary mission went beyond the promulgation of a particular performance method or style of directing to be studied.

His contribution was as an apostle, even the messiah, of a belief that the American theater is the artistic peer of the the[...]