Sonia Moore

Sofia Ezarovna Shatsova Helfand (née /Sofja Evzarovna Shacova; Moore was a student of Yevgeny Vakhtangov, and later became an acting teacher, founding her own school in New York City, the Sonia Moore Studio of the Theatre, in 1961.

Early life Sofia Ezarovna Shatsova was born in Gomel, Russian Empire (now Belarus) in 1902, into a Jewish family. She went to the Moscow Art Theatre School's Third Studio to study acting under Russian theatre practitioner Yevgeny Vakhtangov in 1920. She married Soviet diplomat Lev Borisovich Helfand in Paris in 1926. They had a daughter, Irene, born in Paris, France, in 1928. In 1940, she and her husband defected from his posting in Italy to the United States, fearing Stalin's purges if he were to return to Moscow. They adopted the surname Moore, and she became Sonia Moore.

After her husband's death in 1957, Sonia decided to open a school of acting to bring the updated and revised teachings of Stanislavski to America. In 1961, she founded the Sonia Moore Studio of the Theatre in New York City. She also simplified the method of simple physical action.

Works The Stanislavski System: The Professional Training of an Actor (1965).

The Stanislavski System: The Professional Training of an Actor; Second Revised Edition (1984).

Training an Actor: The Stanislavski System in Class (1997).

Stanislavski Revealed: The Actor's Complete Guide to Spontaneity on Stage (republished 2000).