When I started the Drama Studio, it was in 1988 in Seattle, I was still in an existential crisis – my old world, which was being a prominent artist in the Polish avant-garde theater, had collapsed already sometime ago when I defected to the West while being on an artistic tour with my company, the Wroclaw Pantomime Theater, in Germany, in protest against of proclamation of martial law by the communist military junta of Wojciech Jaruzelski in Poland, in December 13, 1981. It was a turning point of my life. I became a fugitive of no return who lost everything but my skills and had to rebuild both my life and professional career anew in the West. My skills enabled me at once to find employment as an acting and movement teacher, and it set me on the path of exploring the acting methods and techniques. The Drama Studio in Seattle was an experimental ground. Over there I worked out my own acting method, which I later described in the book, In Character: An Actor’s Workbook for Character Development. I’ve recently written the second edition of this book, expending and clarifying its philosophy. I am inclined toward the theater of meaning and think that meaning has been lost in the modern/postmodern culture and needs to be restored or found anew. Please, check the electronic version of this book in the Drama Studio’s Shop on line, if you like. There is also a video with Movement for the Actor: Plastic Exercises, which you can download. The other products on this on-line shop are my plays.
Now Drama Studio Online serves me as an outlet for my creative work, but also as a production company whenever I direct plays but also for producing films. My short film “A Theater Manifesto of An Old Man” is going to be shown in the Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles. Let it be a good sign, for my three screenplays, which I wrote in cooperation with my wife, Rebecca, are ready to be filmed.