What Is the Chekhov Technique?

The Chekhov Technique is an imaginative approach to creating behavior, which is the actor's job. It encourages the actor to move beyond using literal, personal experience and into creative transformation. 

The technique strives to unite mind, body and imagination, encouraging actors to create behavior with intention, and not get weighted down with intellectual horseshit. This integration supports both mental health and artistic freedom by allowing actors to work without emotional strain.

Chekhov believed that an actor who is open, available, and connected to inspiration can become a true artist. These qualities are also at the core of the Meisner Technique. The Chekhov Technique also puts an emphasis on form, ease, beauty, and the sense of the whole. It asks the actor to use physical action as a way to unlock emotion and intention, which aligns directly with the disciplined, embodied approach we teach at Maggie Flanigan Studio.

I had the privilege of studying under the late master teacher Lenard Petit while getting my master’s degree at Rutgers. He was recognized worldwide as one of the best teachers of the technique, and along with Meisner’s training, completely transformed my understanding of acting.

Like Meisner, Chekhov encouraged a sense of play rooted in spontaneity and curiosity. Chekhov referred often to what he called the “ideal actor”, one who is open, available, and connected to inspiration.

Michael Chekhov and His Approach

Michael Chekhov was the nephew of the great Russian writer and playwright Anton Chekhov. He was also a student of Konstantin Stanislavski, considered to be the father of modern acting. In the 1930s and 1940s, Chekhov developed his technique, which strived to provide the actor with tools to create vivid, organic, interesting human behavior.

The Core of the Michael Chekhov Technique

The Chekhov Technique centers on the actor’s ability to engage the imagination as a powerful tool for transformation. The technique encourages actors to create vivid, rich behavior through psychological gestures, atmosphere, and impulse. It creates a heightened awareness of energy, movement, and intention. I love working with this technique because it allows actors to inhabit a role with greater creativity and truth.

I believe that the Chekhov Technique is an excellent companion to Meisner, and this is why we teach the technique here at the Maggie Flanigan Studio. 

Chekhov promotes a sense of ease, form, and beauty in performance. I think that these are three essential acting qualities that can help make an actor's work truly compelling. Also, the exploration of universal archetypes can tap into the human condition in a way that allows an actor to be deeply expressive.

Chekhov and Meisner: Compatible Acting Methods

Both Meisner and Chekhov are distinct in their approaches, but both are highly compatible for an actor's process and craft. 

Meisner training is rooted in truthfully doing and active, empathic listening. Meisner believed that actors are spontaneous, responsive, and emotionally fluid. Both Meisner and Chekhov believed in the power of the imagination, as opposed to actors using the literal traumas and tragedies of their lives. When combined, these methods offer a holistic approach to the art of acting. 

The Meisner Technique provides the actor with a grounded, emotional truth, and true moment to moment connection, and Chekhov provides tools to expand that truth into something more vivid, expansive, and transformative.

The concept of radiating, the idea of communicating the character’s internal essence and choices, supports Meisner’s belief that acting is an illumination of the human condition. 

Both Meisner and Chekhov believed that an actor did not have to go back to their literal past experiences in order to create behavior. Both fully separated themselves from the teachings of Lee Strasberg and his Method approach to acting. 

The best acting involves actors who are fully present and in the moment, and both Meisner and Chekhov help develop actors who can do just that.

Why the Chekhov Technique Matters

The Chekhov Technique matters deeply to the art of acting. From my own experience, I can tell you that it liberates the actor from the limits of literal thinking and past experience, and connects them to something more universal, more imaginative, and more transformational.

Artists are always staying open to inspiration, and you never know when it will come. I believe that inspiration must be actively cultivated, and this can happen through the imagination in true conjunction with the body. It can allow you to simultaneously create characters that are both larger than life and also grounded in truth.

Foundations and influence

Michael Chekhov studied at the Moscow Art Theatre and built on Stanislavski’s ideas by emphasizing psycho physical work. He taught that movement, gesture, and the imagination were key to creating full characters on stage. 

Chekhov encouraged actors to explore artistic impulses and avoid relying solely on affective memory. If anything, Chekhov releases the actor's imagination, and frees them from the prison of conventionality.

I would also say that Chekhov can be viewed really as a philosophy of acting. It also is a fantastic way to open the actor's creative potential. It gives actors a set of tools that help them move beyond their habitual, pedestrian patterns of behavior, and into something deeper and more universal. 

An actor is tasked with illuminating the human condition, and Chekhov has been a tremendous influence on actors who wish to truly do that. Notable artists like Marilyn Monroe and Clint Eastwood have both explored aspects of Chekhov’s work in their pursuit of truthful, compelling performances.

Key elements of the Chekov Technique

The core elements of Chekhov’s work are found in the use of psychological gesture, atmosphere, radiating and receiving, the life-body, and the four qualities of ease, form, beauty, and the sense of the whole. The training also looks at the impact of archetypes, which are universal to the human experience, and not limited to an actor's pedestrian past.

This is not the kind of work that requires students to sit in a classroom listening to a teacher talk away. This is active training, and students are up on their feet from day one, learning how to work with these essential elements of an actor’s process. 

To use an analogy, the Meisner Technique lays the foundation and builds the house, and the Chekhov Technique furnishes the house. It is the furniture, the paint, the drapes, and the decor that make the house unique. When an actor can learn these two approaches simultaneously, it’s amazing what can happen.

Training the whole actor

I believe that any serious artist masters their instrument, and the Maggie Flanigan Studio has created a conservatory approach to actor training that makes this possible. 

There are very few studios in the United States that offer both Meisner and Chekhov simultaneously. Combined with classes in Voice, Movement, Breathwork, Clown, Mask & Character, and Script Analysis, students at MFS get the caliber of training to compete with the actors who are coming out of the top MFA programs in the country. Whether you're working on a monologue or a scene, this training provides the depth and craft needed to bring the work to life.

I’m not interested in working with anyone who is not passionate about the art of acting, and also willing to commit themselves to the hard work that comes with pursuing a professional acting career. Most actors are lazy, and do just enough to get by. That doesn’t fly with me. 

If you really want to be an actor, start taking yourself seriously, bust your ass, and learn how to create organic, vivid, fully realized human behavior consistently. 

Teaching and community

The Chekhov Technique is taught at MFS by Sam Willet, who is a graduate of our two-year conservatory, and has spent the last decade immersed in Chekhov, and the art of teaching it. This is a year-long progression that coincides with the Meisner Technique training, which is the heart and soul of the Maggie Flanigan Studio.

The Maggie Flanigan Studio is an NYC acting studio committed to serious, professional training. We support our students in developing strong technique, professional standards, and lasting artistry.

Chekhov Technique at Maggie Flanigan Studio

The Chekhov Technique helps actors develop imagination, emotional range, and physical expression—key elements of truthful performance. Classes focus on psychological gesture, atmosphere, and impulse to build a reliable, repeatable process.

Chekhov 1 & 2 are available for all students enrolled at the Maggie Flanigan Studio, and are offered in our Core and Professional Actor Training Program. Led by experienced teachers, this work adds a vivid and rich way to create interesting and compelling human behavior.