ABSTRACT
The author introduces two central concepts, the 'Magic if' and the 'Given Circumstances', which are part of the system of acting techniques developed by Russian actor and theatre director Konstantin Stanislavski. These two intertwining concepts function as practical tools in his profession as actor and director. The author presents an example of his work as the artist in an 18-month long artistic intervention project conducted in a mid-sized Swedish municipality during 2010-2011. He focused on an episode about halfway through the intervention when participants lost confidence and started to question the project. To exemplify how the author used acting and directing competences during the critical moment in the organizational intervention, he describes the process as a four-step analysis and transformational model: framing reality as theatre, analysing by re-enacting, reformulating circumstances at play, and re-playing the game. From these steps the actor/director uses a number of strategies and specific professional competencies.
