Marsha Mason Launches Flying Swan Acting Program

Four-time Academy Award nominated actress Marsha Mason announced the launch of the Flying Swan Acting Program. The Flying Swan is an acting program designed for young acting students aged 16-20 who wish to train in an intensive program. Based at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, the intensive four week summer residential acting program will be facilitated by Mason as President along with a team of celebrity instructors and esteemed acting faculty from the US and Britain.

In her steering of The Flying Swan Acting Program, Mason has teamed up with renowned London theatre program developer and administrator Tony Branch to lead the program as Executive Director. Tony Branch is an English theater training administrator and producer who in 1983 founded the British American Drama Academy (BADA) in London with Carolyn Sands, where celebrity actors such as Orlando Bloom, David Schwimmer, Paul Rudd, Oliver Platt, Paul Giamatti and others have been students. He remained as director until 2004, when he came to America to develop the Flying Swan Acting Program.

Flying Swan provides a learning environment that will give students the opportunity to live and breathe acting and theatre for four weeks. Through classes offered such as "Modern American Drama," "Audition Technique," "Introduction to Shakespeare," "Acting for the Musical Theatre," "Improvisation" and others, students will have around the clock access to their instructors, improve their acting skills and identify their strengths and weaknesses while experiencing college life and gaining qualification for college, drama school and the acting profession at a liberal arts university such as Wesleyan University.

Mason and Branch have enlisted a stellar faculty of eminent professional actors including Ms. Mason and Henry Goodman as well as a hand-picked, all-star team of teachers from the US and Britain such as UCLA acting professor and theater director Joe Olivieri, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art professor, Penny Cherns, and Senior Lecturer in Theater at Dartmouth College James Goodwin Rice among others.

Included in this list are our Special Guests: Brian Cox, Fiona Shaw, Rosemary Harris, Michael Cristofer, Jack O'Brien, and Paul Rudd among others to facilitate the curriculum through rigorous, in-depth master classes to the students.

The Flying Swan Acting Program is scheduled to begin June 26, 2008 through July 28, 2008.

Prospective students interested in Flying Swan are required to be between 16 and 20 years of age, submit an application, a current 8x10 headshot, resume of theatrical work and a brief essay of why they wish to participate in the program as well audition before March 31, 2008 via video or in person at one of the program's audition sites in New York; Hanover, NH; Chicago, IL; Hartford, CT; St. Louis, MO; Los Angeles, CA or internationally in London, UK. Audition dates and locations are to be announced shortly.

For more information about The Flying Swan Acting Program please visit www.flyingswan.org.

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