In early 1956, Cassavetes and Lane rented a room on an upper floor of the Variety Arts Building at 225 West 46th Street (the site of the old Malin Studios) and invited friends to come and read scenes with them. A few months later they moved into the vacant ground floor which was available for around $800 a month. It had not been used for years and was a complete wreck. Lane and the actor-students threw up interior walls to make a few small offices, a medium-sized classroom and a practice stage. Everything was done on a shoestring and the result was not very fancy. The stage was tiny and interrupted at one end by a stanchion that supported the floor above. Stage lighting was provided by a single ceiling spotlight in front and seating consisted of four rows of folding chairs (which were later replaced with seats from a razed movie theater) – thirty or forty seats in all, which was at least twenty more than they needed. Since the room was not soundproofed, the thumps of dance classes on the floor above could be heard throughout the day. The official name of the group was ‘The Cassavetes–Lane Drama Workshop’, but most of the students simply called it ‘Variety Arts’ or the ‘Workshop’.

The workshop was extremely small and fairly informal, with classes held in the evenings a few nights a week. Initial membership was almost entirely by invitation, with only seven or eight actors involved at the start (though the number doubled in the first few weeks). The workshop was divided into groups based on experience. Lane worked with the beginners and intermediate students, and Cassavetes worked with the advanced group, where some of the actors had a little previous experience. Hugh Hurd had done some television and film work, including singing in the chorus in Carmen Jones, and had met Cassavetes earlier in 1956 when they acted together in Edge of the City (though Hurd’s role is so small it is uncredited in Ritt’s film). Tom Allen and Cliff Carnell had done a little prior television and stage work. Tony Ray and Lelia Goldoni arrived a few months later. Ray had had a small part in Anthony Mann’s Men at War and had done some soap-opera acting. Goldoni was an eighteen-year-old from Los Angeles who had danced a little with Lester Horton and studied drama with Jeff Corey but never performed professionally. If truth be told, the members of Cassavetes’ group joined more because they hoped the connection with Cassavetes might lead to a paying job than out of a desire to take classes.