Sonoma County actor, teacher and author Jim Jarrett is proud that he learned about acting from one of the masters. But in the beginning, growing up in Santa Rosa, Jarrett didn’t even know he was interested in theater.

“I went to Cardinal Newman High School, and I had never acted in a thing in my life,”  he recalled in a Santa Rosa magazine interview last year. “I was a typical jock.”

But after his graduation from Newman in 1976, Jarrett felt the pull of the spotlight, and by 1987, he was in New York studying with one of theater’s most famous teachers, Sandy Meisner.

Jarrett studied, and eventually taught, with Meisner for the next four years, following him to Los Angeles for the latter half of that period. Now Jarrett teaches acting at his own school in San Francisco, dividing his time between homes in Sonoma and Sun Valley, Idaho.

Ultimately, Jarrett wrote  a book about the master’s methods and his own solo play about Meisner. Jarrett has performed “Meisner” (and his other one-man show, “Vincent,” about van Gogh) all over the map, but local audiences don’t get to see it all that often.

Jarrett will perform “Meisner” just once, at 8 p.m.  on Saturday, Jan. 30, at the Marine Memorial Theatre in San Francisco.  Tickets cost $39.  Reservations: (415) 771-6900. Information: www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com.