When, in 1931 Clurman, Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford created an influential theatre group that championed an imperative for realism and the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavski, they invited Stella Adler to become a founding member of that collective, which they called The Group Theatre.Īlthough neither the politics nor the cooperative energy of the company appealed to her greatly, Stella nevertheless joined the ensemble, having been promised leading roles and having been enamored of Clurman’s vision. In 1924, she met her second husband, Harold Clurman, one of the co-founders of The Group Theatre, and in 1928, she participated in the Actor’s Laboratory where she met Lee Strasberg as well. She received a great deal of acclaim among Yiddish-speaking audiences as the leading lady of Jacob Ben Ami and Maurice Schwartz, yet she longed for wider recognition and the opportunity to play more varied roles.įollowing her Broadway debut in Karel Kapek’s The World We Live In, she joined the American Laboratory headed by Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya, who were former members of the Moscow Art Theatre. She spent the next ten years performing throughout the United States, Europe, and South America, appearing in more than 100 plays in vaudeville and the Yiddish theatre. When she was eighteen, she went to London, where she made her debut at the Pavilion as Naomi in Elisa Ben Avia, a role she performed for a year, before returning to New York. The youngest daughter of the eminent Yiddish tragedians, Sara and Jacob Adler, Stella began her career on her father’s stage at the age of four in a production of Broken Hearts.
Stella Adler dedicated her life to preserving and expanding the highest level of art in the theatre.
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