Acting that starts
with listening.
Training for actors, improvisers, returning performers, and curious adults who want their work to feel more present, connected, and alive.
A place to practice being fully there.
EAST Acting Studio is a training home for people who want acting to feel less manufactured and more alive.
Our work begins with attention: listen to the other person, notice what happens in you, and respond from there. We draw from Meisner-based training, ensemble work, scene study, and related approaches rather than treating performance as a bag of tricks.
You don’t need to arrive calling yourself an actor. You do need to be willing to pay attention.
Train with us this fall.
Listen. Receive. Respond.
A 10-session introduction to Meisner technique for actors, improvisers, returning performers, and curious adults.
Familiar instincts—presence, spontaneity, attention to your partner—get another gear: noticing what genuinely hits you before your head edits the response.
The work is simple.
That doesn’t make it easy.
Listening
Hear what is actually happening—not what you expected to hear.
Connection
Let the other person matter. Story lives between people.
Instinct
Notice the response before judgment and planning flatten it.
Presence
Stay grounded and available when something genuinely changes.
Practice
Craft deepens through return. Come back and keep working.
“I learned a lot about how to let what’s actually happening inside me come up and affect my partner. I’m excited to apply this to my scene work!”
Acting is a deeply human experience.
Learning to listen. Learning to quiet the mind. Learning to connect honestly with another person.
These are performance skills—but they’re also human skills.
We welcome beginners, returning artists, working performers, improvisers, and people who are simply curious about the craft. You don’t have to claim the title of “actor” to begin.
People who still do the work.
Ryan Link
Broadway and touring performer, musician, and Meisner-trained teacher based in Nashville. Broadway credits include RENT and HAIR, with national touring work including Once.
Ryan trained—and later taught—Meisner-based technique at the Matthew Corozine Studio Theatre in New York. He continues to work and train as an actor while teaching at EAST.
Allison Link
Founder of EAST Collective and Tenn Little Birds, Allison studied Meisner-based technique for several years at Matthew Corozine Studio Theatre in New York and served as Matthew Corozine’s teaching assistant.
A performer, educator, and longtime teaching artist, Allison joins selected Acting Studio sessions throughout the term.
Ready to get out
of your head?
Meisner Foundations is enrolling now in three small-group sections.