Category: Group Classes

NEW! Summer Piano Explorations

We are thrilled to offer a NEW summer piano program for late beginner to intermediate level piano students ages 8–12, June 23–27, 2025!

Summer Piano Explorations is an exciting new week-long program where students will deepen their understanding of piano technique and musical expression in a positive, supportive environment.

Students will receive:

Private lessons
Guided practice time
Classes in music history, sight reading, rhythmic fundamentals, and other topics
Attend optional evening performances by faculty and guests
Final video-recorded showcase performance

Learn more

Acting Group Classes

Spring Break Acting Intensive: Meet the Artists

The Spring Break Acting Intensive: Devised Theater course is a collaboration between Acting for Young People (AFYP), Mason Community Arts Academy, and Precipice Theater Team (PTT).

The Precipice Theater Team will work with students to craft a dynamic, one-of-a-kind, play using students’ own words, thoughts, and experiences. In this intensive, PTT founders Ashley Forman and Josh Bickford will guide students through their internationally celebrated devising process to create autobiographical, ensemble-based theater that poses significant questions crucial to the participants and their communities. Through writing, movement, rehearsals, and performance, students will collaborate to bring their stories to life, in an environment infused with generosity, creativity, and excitement.

Ideal for students in grades six through high school sophomores, the program will culminate in a fully realized and polished performance.

Here, Ashley and Josh tell us more about their process and the exciting plans they have in store for our upcoming collaboration!

Josh Bickford

Lead Teaching Artist

Ashley Forman

Lead Teaching Artist

Can you tell us more about the Precipice Theater Team? What are the origins of the company, and what is your mission?

Ashley: Absolutely! Precipice Theater Team is an interdisciplinary theater company that produces collaborative, autobiographical productions designed to pose vital questions, spark dialogue, and strengthen connections within communities. We create dynamic productions that integrate theater, visual art, and music to deliver unique artistic experiences.

After decades of developing this devised theater process at the regional level, I’m thrilled to now lead a company that focuses entirely on the kind of work I believe is most vital for young artists. I founded Precipice Theater Team to ensure young people have a space where their stories are celebrated, their talents are recognized, and their minds are challenged to imagine what’s next for the American stage.

How does a devised program format differ from a more “traditional” acting class or camp?

Ashley: In a traditional theater class, students typically work from a preexisting script, learning their assigned roles and waiting for their turn to shine. In a devised theater program, we flip the process. We start with actors first and develop the script based on their ideas, experiences, and contributions. This is also different in that it is ensemble theater, meaning that every student is on stage for the entire play and crucial to every moment.

What might a day of spring break camp look like? What can students expect?

Josh: A typical day of our spring break intensive begins with a warmup designed to center the students, heighten spatial awareness, integrate body and breath, and strengthen ensemble focus. The day unfolds with skill based games, creative movement, discussions on areas of exploration, autobiographical writing, and rehearsing newly devised sections of their original play.

Can you tell us more about the public performance opportunities for this program, in the Spotlight on the Arts festival and Precipice devised theater festival?

Josh: We are excited to be able to offer multiple performance opportunities for this ensemble. First, on May 4, students will perform their play at the Spotlight on the Arts Festival. Then, on May 25, as part of Precipice Theater Team’s Devised Theater Festival, they will take the stage at the historic George Washington Masonic Temple in Alexandria to perform alongside other PTT ensembles, allowing them to connect with a larger community of young, local artists.

Anything else you’d like to share, in general, or about our collaboration?

Ashley: We’re thrilled to partner with the incredible Acting for Young People! AFYP has been a cornerstone of theater education in Fairfax County, shaping and supporting generations of artists. Their commitment to empowering young performers aligns perfectly with our mission, making this collaboration especially meaningful. It’s an honor to join forces for this exciting new initiative.

Program Details

Ages: 11–15 (grades 6–10)

Dates: April 14–18, 2025
9 a.m.–3 p.m.

Tuition: $395

Location: Mason Community Arts Academy Building in Fairfax, Virginia

Public Performances: Sunday, May 4 and Sunday, May 25 (times to be announced)

Class page

Group Classes

2025 Summer Arts at Mason

Academy staff and instructors are already gearing up for Summer 2025! See below for information available for our music programs. Registration for summer programs will begin mid to late January 2025.

Mason Summer Band Camp

MCAA and the Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music are thrilled to announce the second annual Mason Summer Band Camp held June 16 – 20, 2025.

Wind, Brass, and Percussionists from grades 6-12 are invited to spend a week of music making featuring a Junior High and Senior High Band with opportunities for private lessons with Mason faculty! Students have the option to enroll as a Day Camper or Overnight Residential Camper!

Mason String Intensive

The Mason String Intensive is designed to help musicians develop the skills needed to become dynamic soloists and chamber musicians. Led by Mason faculty, guest artists, and string pedagogy students, the sessions will cover technical proficiency, audition preparation, and effective practice strategies.

Mason String Camp

The Mason String Camp is a week-long intensive program for middle and high school violin, viola, cello, and bass players. Students will learn, rehearse, and perform an orchestra program over the course of the week.

Mason Orchestral Conducting Symposium

The 2025 Mason Orchestral Conducting Symposium aspires to be a unique conducting workshop is in service to conductors in all aspects of the musical careers and goals. Past participants have included young aspiring conductors at the very beginning of their conducting journey, current undergraduate and graduate conducting students, classroom teachers, and active professional conductors looking to further develop their craft.

Engage, Elevate, Empower

Teacher Well-Being & Artistic Social Emotional Learning (SEL) for the Performing Arts EducatorThis five-day professional development workshop will provide performing arts educators with: research-based well-being practices to consistently restore teacher health and well-being inside and outside of the classroom; teaching methods and strategies to improve student focus, engagement, and artistry; and the rudiments of Artistic Social Emotional Learning and their application to empower teacher and student Identity, Belonging and Agency.

Group Classes

Big Things are Happening at the Academy

MCAA was recently featured in George Mason University’s news. In “Mason Community Arts Academy is doing big things,” Shayla Brown highlights the Academy’s growing number of summer registrants and our first ever Children’s Choir Camp:

“George Mason University’s Mason Community Arts Academy (MCAA) has been named one of the Best Summer Camps by Northern Virginia Magazine every year since 2021.

This summer, the program broke multiple records including the number of student participants at just under 1,900. The Acting for Young People (AFYP) program also broke its attendance record with 950 students.

MCAA, part of the College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA), includes summer camps, programs, and workshops that teach local children aged 4-18 in acting and theater, film and video, music, and visual art.”

Read full article

Group Classes

2024 Summer Arts at Mason: A Record Summer to Celebrate!

This season, our faculty and staff had the privilege of working with over 1,800 students across our programs in Music, Acting, Visual Art, Film & Video, and Professional Development. While we streamlined our programs into seven weeks, we grew by an additional 130 registrants this year!

In addition to the return of our most popular programs, including Summer Acting Camps, Filmmaking Camps and Creative Discoveries visual art classes, MCAA presented our brand new Children’s Choir Camp!

The Children’s Choir Camp and Kodály Side-by-Side supplemental program was once a years long dream now come to fruition. Through this program, our young choral students participated in choir practice, folk dancing and song, rhythm based games, and so much more, guided by Kodály teachers in training.

This year, our second annual Mason Summer Band Camp under the direction of Dr. William L. Lake, Jr. and featuring several guest teaching artists, welcomed over 120 young musicians from all over the region. The Mason String Camp combined the High School Strings Institute and String Camp into one program. Directed by George Mason University’s Dr. Soo Han and Professor June Huang, along with fantastic guest faculty, students were divided into two ensembles and also learned through chamber ensemble rehearsals, private lessons and master classes.

Thanks to the recommendations of our Music Technology faculty, the popular Music Producer program was divided into two sections: Song Production and Mixing Techniques. In Song Production, students were introduced to the artistic and technical skills needed to produce professional-sounding music tracks. In Mixing Techniques, students learned how to shape a mix for emotional impact, how to make musical elements fit together, and how to tighten pitch and timing of recorded parts.

Again this year, our Orff and Kodály teacher training programs provided music teachers with the opportunity to earn credit or gain professional experience in these intensive courses of study. Nine hundred fifty students attended our Acting for Young People theater programs. Our Visual Art classes, under the leadership of Dr. Justin Sutters and Dr. Hayon Park, provided young students with the opportunity to learn various art techniques and make visits to the campus libraries and other locations. While campus was bustling, over 210 students attended private music lessons each week at our Academy building!

A huge thanks to each and every one of the faculty members who shared their expertise in all of these programs. We are ever grateful to our colleagues in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and the Arts Support Umbrella staff, who welcome us into the campus spaces each year and make our programming possible. As always, we thank our students and families who attended a camp, class or lesson this year.

Last but certainly not least, please join me in thanking and congratulating our incredible MCAA staff. None of this would happen without their tireless efforts. Before the summer season is even over, they are already hard at work, reflecting on this year and making plans for next! Stay tuned for exciting updates coming in early 2025, and of course, we look forward to our Fall Group Classes and private music lessons.

On behalf of all of us at MCAA, we wish you a happy end of summer and beginning of fall. We can’t wait to see you again soon, and to continue watching you create and grow!

-Mary Lechter, Executive Director