In 1984, American Academy of Dramatic Arts classmates — Nick Casavettes, Robert Craighead, Claudio Martinez, Keith Giaimo, and Tim Byron Owen — would visit the Casavettes home to watch John Casavettes, Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara, perform improv scenes in their living room. The following year, a feature film would be produced based on the improvisation.
1985, Tuesday nights were selected to meet and read scripts and do scene work to develop the ensemble of young artists. This was done in a house located at the corner of Fulton Avenue and Sarah Street in Sherman Oaks, California, hence the name The Sarah Fulton Group, which has continued to meet consistently for over thirty years.
Director Phil Boroff, American Academy of Dramatic Arts acting teacher, came in 1990 and held classes on Tuesday nights at the house on Fulton and Sarah, working with the ensemble. With the departure of Phil Boroff in late August, Tim Byron Owen along with members Christina Miles, Donnie Blankenship, Kelly Marchant, Claudio Martinez, Zale Morris founded The Sarah Fulton Group as the class structure evolved into a workshop and producing entity in collaboration with directors, writers, producers and artists of theater, film, and television.
Having out-grown the living room in 1993, the group converted the garage at Fulton and Sarah into a black box studio workspace, with baffled walls, stage flooring, studio lighting and carpeted seating for twenty participants.
By 1994, The Sarah Fulton Group was granted non-profit status as an official 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.
Sarah Fulton Group began an outreach program with the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena in 1995, creating a Directors Lab, participating in film directing classes as well as making short films, with famed director Ted Post and department head Francine Parker.
Working with the Los Angeles school system for theatre appreciation as co-producers of a Christmas play with Mark Ellis' 3rd grade students at Granada Hills Elementary School, throughout the 90's.
For fifteen years Sarah Fulton Group members served meals and entertained for Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter holidays for the community of the Anne Douglas Center, in downtown Los Angeles.
Throughout the 90's, Sarah Fulton Group performed at the "Dream Halloween" event in Baker Hangar, sponsored by Children Affected by Aids Foundation.
Professionally, Sarah Fulton Group helped build and maintain THE VENUE, a theatre envisioned by Clarke Branson and Paula Randall Smith.
Members of the Sarah Fulton Group improvised, wrote, and performed professionally under a SAG contract, in a national ad campaign for the game, UNO, for Mattel Toys, Inc.
The Sarah Fulton Group received an Emmy Award for their participation in producing a PSA for The American Heart Association, WHERE'S JO?, written and directed by Lane Shefter Bishop, in 1997.
Al Guarino offered a scene study/cold reading class on Thursday nights, from 1994 through 1996 at The Sarah Fulton Group, which was followed by a scene study class with Barry Lynch, from 1996 through 1999.
1998 - "2 Bucks- a- Show," at the Gardner Stage, presented an evening of 5 one acts, produced and performed by Sarah Fulton Group, directed by Reid Freeman.
1998 - Sarah Fulton Group co-produced with The Celtic Arts Center, Gardner McKay's, "Sea Marks," at the Raven Playhouse.
2000 - Sarah Fulton Group co-produced and performed in, with the Celtic Arts Center, Terrence McNally's "Bad Habits", a benefit for The Anne Douglas Center, at the Los Angeles Mission.
2001 - Artistic Director Tim Byron Owen, co-directed the short film "A Far Cry From A Distant Land," with BAFTA director, Angela Lubbock.
2001 - Sarah Fulton Group launched the hit co-production, "A Night In November" by Marie Jones, starring Marty Maguire. The play debuted at the Celtic Arts Center, then went to Garry Marshall's Falcon Theatre. On Jones insistence, the Tricycle Theater in London brought SFG's production over to sold out performances. Owen and Maguire then went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002, taking the Spirit of the Fringe Award for Best Production, and the Tapwater Award for Best Actor. They returned to London's Tricycle Theater, and in 2003 went on to Dublin's Gaiety, Liberty Hall Theaters. A return Los Angeles engagement in 2005 at the Celtic Arts Center garnered two Ovation Nominations, Best Production and Best Actor, lead to Irish Arts Center in New York and Jimmy Tingle's Off-Broadway Theatre in Boston in 2006.
2003 - Sarah Fulton Group co-produced with Playhouse West, Stephen Metcalfe's "Sorrow & Sons" and "Spittin' Image."
2004 saw major change for Sarah Fulton Group when they lost their space. They are grateful to have been sponsored by On Your Mark Studios/Chelsea Studios, for over seventeen years.
2004 - Sarah Fulton Group proudly produced another hit play and West Coast Premiere, "Fighting Words" by Sunil Kuruvilla, for an extended nine week run at the Celtic Arts Center of Los Angeles. A return engagement to the Celtic Arts Center, April 2006, preceded the production's European premiere at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, for the Cardiff Passion Festival in July, 2006.
2007 - Sarah Fulton Group / The Celtic Arts Center, produced "Love Me Deadly", an award-winning, chilling mystery written by Matthew Sklar. This thriller of a play was performed in the manner of a live, old-style 1950s radio drama under the direction of The Sarah Fulton Group Artistic Director and founder Tim Byron Owen.
2009 - Sarah Fulton Group partnered with Ray Bradbury in a co-production of his Irish play, "Falling Upward", at the El Portal Theatre, garnering rave reviews, LA Times Critics Choice and LA Weekly Critics Pick. Ray Bradbury is quoted saying: "This production of "Falling Upward" is the best production of anything I've written."
2010 - Sarah Fulton Group produced the short thriller "Happy Anniversary", through the LA Valley College Film School, directed by Tim Byron Owen.
2011 - Sarah Fulton Group produced "The Phone Call", starring SFG veteran member Creed Bratton, directed by Tim Byron Owen.
2011 - Sarah Fulton Group co-produced "Jimmy and Sam", with Theatre 40, starring Pat Harrington and Howard Storm, directed by Tim Byron Owen.
2013 - Sarah Fulton Group co-produced "Remembrance," with Theatre 40 and Georganne Aldrich Heller, starring SFG veteran member, Mik Scriba.
2014 - Sarah Fulton Group co-produced with The Mayflower, "Spoken Words," a collection of twenty-five original, short one act, written by SFG Managing Director, Eleanora Owen, and directed by Tim Byron Owen.
2015 - Sarah Fulton Group co-produced with Theatre Banshee, Georganne Aldrich Heller/Mean Machine Productions, "Caged," by Dermott Davis, directed by Tim Byron Owen.
2016 - Sarah Fulton Group co-produced with The Mayflower, "More Spoken Words," a collection of thirty original, short one acts, written by SFG Managing Director, Eleanora Owen, and directed by Tim Byron Owen.
2019 - Sarah Fulton Group co-produced with Steve Zacharias, Eyeball Films and Georganne Aldrich Heller, the series pilot, "Forty Shades O'Greene," written by Rick Crawford, starring SFG member Marty Maguire, and directed by Tim Byron Owen.