Twenty-five questions,
plainly answered.

None whatsoever. Roughly a third of each incoming class has never stood on a stage. What we look for is willingness – the willingness to be seen, to be wrong, and to come back next week. That is the whole audition.

It is. Fifteen minutes, one-on-one with Jim. No monologue, no headshot, no resume. You’ll sit across from him and have a conversation about what brought you to this work and what you hope it will give you. He will be honest about whether the timing is right.

You will work. You will not be asked to “perform.” From the first hour we begin the Repetition Exercise – sitting across from another human being and telling them, plainly, what you notice. There are no monologues in the Foundation. There is no audience but the room.

It is the opposite of a problem. Sandy used to say that nervousness is the actor’s capital  it means you care. We will not ask you to lose your fear. We will ask you to do the work with it.

Eighteen to seventy-eight in the last twelve months. Most are between twenty-five and forty-five. We do not run a youth program; this is adult training for serious work.

For the first three months: two people sit across from each other and repeat what they observe. “You’re smiling.” “I’m smiling.” “You’re smiling.” It sounds absurd; it is the most rigorous attention exercise in American acting. From there we add the Independent Activity, Preparation, and eventually scene work.

No. The short version: both grew from Stanislavski, but Sandy rejected emotional memory as the engine of an actor’s preparation. He built his approach around imagination and the partner across from you, not the wound inside you.

You will not. We do not believe actors are emotional guinea pigs, and we will not ask you to be one. If something true rises in you during the work, we will honor it. We will not chase it.

It works wherever a human being is asked to behave truthfully — film, television, theatre, voice, opera, commercial, on-camera hosting. The technique is medium-agnostic. The behaviour it produces is what casting directors mean when they say “present.”

Most students notice it in their own life before they notice it on stage — they start listening to people. On camera, six months is honest. Real fluency takes the two-year arc through Foundation, Intermediate, and Advanced.

Three sessions a year — Fall, Winter/Spring, Summer — twelve weeks each. The full course of study is six sessions (roughly two years): three Foundation, two Intermediate, one Advanced. Students are invited into the next session by Jim; you do not move up by paying.

One four-hour session per week. Foundation runs evenings, 7-11 PM. Intermediate and Advanced run on weekends. You will also be expected to rehearse outside of class with your scene partners — two to four hours a week.

$1,950 per twelve-week session. A non-refundable $200 deposit secures your seat after the interview. We offer two work-study positions per session for students who need them — ask Jim in your interview.

No. The work is built on the trust of a closed room — auditors break that. What we offer instead is the interview, an open studio night twice a year, and the video archive where Jim teaches in his own words.

You can miss two in a twelve-week session. After that we’ll have a conversation. The technique is built on continuity with a partner; the room cannot do the work for you while you’re gone.

38 Keyes Avenue, in the Presidio of San Francisco. The room itself is a converted Officers’ Club rehearsal hall – wood floors, high ceiling, no mirrors. We chose it because Sandy taught in a room that looked very much like it.

Yes – free, on Keyes Avenue and the surrounding Presidio streets, including evenings. The closest Muni stop is the PresidiGo Shuttle at the Main Post, a six-minute walk.

Anything you can sit, stand, kneel, and breathe in. Nothing precious, nothing restrictive. Bare feet or soft shoes for floor work. We are not a movement studio, but you will be on your feet.

No. The room is closed: no phones, no cameras, no observers. Notebooks are welcome between exercises. What happens in the room stays in the room – this is older than the studio, and we keep it.

The ground floor and bathrooms are wheelchair-accessible. The rehearsal hall is on the same level. If you have a specific access need, tell Jim in the interview and we will plan around it.

We will not. We are a training studio, not a management company. What we will do is teach you to work so cleanly that, when you do meet an agent, you will be unmistakable in the room. We have introductions, but we do not trade in promises.

Series regular roles on network and streaming television, lead and supporting film, the resident companies of A.C.T. and Berkeley Rep, voice work, national commercials, and a fair number of working teachers of the technique. We do not publish a roster – graduates can speak for themselves.

Jim leads every Foundation session. Advanced scene work is occasionally co-taught with visiting alumni who have themselves trained at his side for at least five years. There are very few of those.

Jim trained for six years at Sanford Meisner’s side – one of a handful of people in the world personally authorized by Sandy to teach the technique. The lineage is one teacher deep.

Yes. Alumni may audit Advanced scene nights free of charge for life, and may re-enroll in a Foundation session at half tuition. Many do. The room is meant to be returned to.