Talent was always the thing some actors brought with them when they walked into class. I also noticed that if you didn’t show talent when you walked in you didn’t have it when you walked out. I wanted to work with students in a way that would develop every one’s “talent” each and everyday they came into class.

Our idea of talent comes from distilling many concepts into an essential form. Talent is the ability to react intimately (emotionally open), immediately (instantly, both emotionally and physically), and spontaneously (in your own naturally unique way) within an imaginary situation. By this definition, talent can be developed. And by developing this talent, we are also developing the skills to become a vibrant, happy human being.

With this definition of talent, I can work with youth and be very clear about what we are going to work on.

If you approach talent for an actor as Intimate, Immediate and Spontaneous you will notice that the students who thought of themselves as better than others are now coming down a little and the students who thought of themselves as inferior can see that they have the ability to develop. Working in this way gives the ego less room to get in the way.

Our initial work approaches the idea of acting from a non-performance place. We do a lot of physical work that develops the concept of release within our student's bodies. Release is a letting go of your muscles, while energizing yourself with breath. While developing release, we also work on stillness of the mind.

This stillness is not zoning out or an inner focus. This stillness is a simple clarity, where your awareness is outward, where worded thought is quieted and the ego is diminished. This allows the student to explore performance as a natural by-product of being alive in the moment.

Emotional work is not introduced until students have a grip on the ideas of stillness, what it is like to be non-judgmental, and what it means to be simply living in the moment.

-Ron Bieganski, Free Street Artistic Director

Free Street offers a two-year training program that develops a creative foundation that enables the student to become a virtuoso artist. During the two years the student will experiment in-depth with emotional flow, character creation, contact improvisation, yoga, script development, vocal quaility, breath control, creative writing for live performance, and diving deeply into work to make quick bold choices.