Free Street opens the potential of youth through theater and writing to be creative, active participants in their own lives.

"I am frequently asked 'What is the Free Street Theater - just what do you do?' I am always stymied by this question because the Free Street Theater is not a static object that can be codified and catalogued." - Patrick Henry, Founding Artistic Director 1969 - 1989

Four decades later, it is still not easy to precisely define Free Street because the very nature of our work makes us indefinable. When the work Free Street is doing becomes comfortable, Free Street moves into the unknown.

Patrick Henry started Free Street in 1969 with the revolutionary idea that theater should be available for more than the 3% of the population that attended traditional plays. It is hard to imagine that it was once radical for a multi-cultural company of professional artists to perform free shows in homogenous neighborhoods.

Free Street has evolved into a laboratory for the development of creativity as an essential language. For the past two decades Free Street has worked with youth, simultaneously developing new works of art and new artists. Developing virtuoso artists doesn't start with acting exercises - it starts with virtuoso creative humans. Free Street theater technique begins with the idea that talent can be taught and that talent-enhancing skills are the same skills that enhance happiness.


What is Talent?
Talent was always this "thing" some actors brought with them when they walked into class. We noticed that if you didn’t show talent when you walked in, you didn’t have it when you walked out.If a teacher can only teach people that can already act- what are you teaching?

At Free Street we thought the problem was what people thought "acting talent" is.

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.