Simply put, the Piven Training Technique is a combination of improvisation exercises designed to bring truth and honesty to an actor’s performance of scripted work. The goal of the improvisation is always to develop the creative impulses, listening skills, and social perception necessary for acting out a playwright’s text. We like to compare the improvisation we use in an actor’s training to the weights & machines an athlete’s uses in their training. At Piven, actors are building muscles—creative muscles necessary to succeed once handed a script and put on a stage with other actors.

Celebrating over 35 years as a nationally recognized and acclaimed theatre arts training center, Piven Theatre Workshop offers a full curriculum of classes for young people and adults. Within the nurturing environment of the Piven class, our students are free to liberate their imaginations, joyfully experiment with theatre games and improvisational techniques, and develop the skills to achieve spontaneity and truthfulness in each moment on stage.

With a focus on ensemble and artistic collaboration, each student is encouraged to express their own unique voice and point of view. Learning the value of self-expression while still maintaining a responsibility to the group, each artist develops an understanding of themselves as a unique and valuable part of the greater whole. Together, students discover the magic of presence, the mystery of timing, and the astonishment of self-expression and theatrical transformation.