Steve Bilich's 7th on San Antonio Acting Workshops

Actor/director/writer Steve Bilich is probably still best known around Austin for helming the 1995 Austin zeitgeist snapshot Ruta Wakening, a memorable portrait of downtown's prebubble creative epicenter-cum-coffee bar Ruta Maya.

Those hallowed beansters have long since ground their way over to a new SoCo locale, but Bilich has returned to town (after a stint in Manhattan working on, among many other things, the West Street "Hero Highway" on 9/11) with the aim of bringing his acting skills to the masses.

Hence 7th on San Antonio, Bilich's new series of acting workshops at 700 San Antonio, which commences mid-August with a little help from his friends.

"We have three teachers onboard right now," says the 20-year-acting vet. "Myself, the great character actor and Herbert Bergof Studio Master Austin Pendleton [A Beautiful Mind, Amistad], and John Ellison, who's done over 300 commercials and a number of movies here in Austin, New York, and Los Angeles. John will be coming in once a month and doing a complete breakdown of commercials, as well as scene study and monologues. John and I, by the way, both come from the Warren Robertson Acting Workshop in New York City, and Warren studied with Brando at the Actor's Studio. So there you go."

Bilich's goal includes not just working actors but anyone who "wants to break down to their core and grow from their core": businesspeople, clergy, you name it, Bilich is interested in busting your inner-child's chops.

"The acting classes are a lot more than just coming together and studying Stanislavsky or Meisner or whatever your technique is," adds Bilich. "What we want to do is to really prep you for the moment, and any good actor knows that's the goal, to be in the moment. So what I'm looking to do is to try and bring people to a specific place via their own experiences. We're not trying to change anybody. We're trying to work with that tool that walks in the door."

Interested tools should send a query e-mail to [email protected]. Pre-interviews for workshop placement will begin the first week of August. Rates are competitive/affordable, with work scholarships available.