A handful of actors gathered at The Encore Musical Theatre in Dexter with Artistic Director and founder Dan Cooney for a Master Class got an unexpected treat—Oscar and Tony winner Tony Walton dropped in with his wife Gen LeRoy.

The legendary set designer traveled from New York to Dexter to see the theater’s Into The Woods production, which closed out its run this past weekend. The Waltons are friends of Cooney, and his wife Jessica Grove, who plays the witch in “Woods,” and came to visit the theater and see the production.

“I hadn’t planned on them coming to the Master Class, but it just worked out nicely before they and Jessica went to dinner,” said Cooney. Both Cooney and Grove are Broadway and Off-Broadway actors, as well as doing regional theater. Cooney has recently been in The Heathers, Bonnie and Clyde, and 9 to 5. This Fall, he performs at The Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J. in The Bandstand. Grove has performed on Broadway in A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, The Wizard of Oz and Les Mis. Grove starred in the national tour of The Boy Friend, which was directed by Julie Andrews with set designs by Walton. That’s where the two families became friends.

Walton held forth at The Encore on his days at The Actor’s Studio, led at the time by Lee Strasberg, when some of his classmates included Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe and Shelly Winters. In discussing Strasberg’s “method” teaching, he recalled that Shelly Winters and another actor took 20 minutes to perform roughly two minutes of action and dialogue. “This is nonsense,” Paul Newman said.

Lawrence Olivier sat in classes for a few weeks, Walton recalled, which was rather late in Olivier’s career—the 1950s. Olivier had little patience for the long process Strasburg was espousing, Walton recalled, but did acknowledge that he had long been utilizing some of the principles of Stanislavsky and some of what Strasburg was teaching.

“Olivier was from a time when you had a bout three weeks to rehearse for a play, so preparation time was key before you showed up for a first reading or on a movie set…and he didn’t have a lot of use for long processes,” said Walton. Indeed, referring to another luminary he had worked with, Noel Coward, “Coward wanted all his players to be off-book at first reading. “He thought that only after you were off book would the really wonderful stuff happen, and of course, he was right.” Coward, said Walton, was very much a Stanislavsky believer, though he didn’t talk about it much.

Of course, said Walton, Strasberg was not a slave to Stanislavski. In fact, Stanislavski, who did not die until 1938 and was aware of what Strasberg was teaching in The Group Theatre in the early and mid 1930s, was very critical of the teacher.

Walton married actress Julie Andrews in 1959. The two were working on Broadway in 1962, and Walt Disney himself came to visit Andrews to beg her to play Marry Poppins in his forthcoming movie. Andrews told Disney that her husband was a set and production designer. “Tell him to bring his book,” Disney said. Walton received an Oscar nomination for his work on the film.

Walton’s Broadway credits are without peer: the original productions of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, The Apple Tree (Tony win), Pippin (Tony win), Chicago, Hurlyburly, I’m Not Rappaport, Six Degrees of Seaparation, The Will Rogers Follies and more. He won an Oscar in 1980 for All That Jazz.

In doing Hurlyburly with director Mike Nichols, he talked at length with playwright David Rabe, who told him that he imagined the characters as caged animals when he was writing. This not only inspired some of the Walton’s set design, but when he related it to Nichols, the director told the actors to rehearse one day as animals. “I want to be a panther,” said Christopher Walken right away, recalled Walton. Can anyone imagine how great a rehearsal that would have been to watch?

The message Walton imparted to the class: There are no rules. “The creative process demands that there are no rules. I know this because most of the best moments in theater have come for me breaking what we may have perceived were the rules.”

One member of the class, Sarah Grace Cattell, got a special treat, though it was a little nerve racking. Before the Waltons departed for dinner, Cooney asked the 13-year old actress to sing her version of “Notice Me Horton,” from Seussical to them.

“I can listen to Tony for hours about everything he has done, and the moments he has lived,” said Cooney.