Mona el Baroudi

Mona is an actor, director, and acting coach for film and TV, who is a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S. She is also a performance coach for opera and pop singers. Mona started acting as a teenager and has over 60 plays, films, commercials, and radio dramas to her credit. Mona holds BFA in Acting from Concordia University in Montreal and received her MFA Acting Performance from York University. Her post-graduate training includes the Hagen Institute Teaching Masterclass at HB Studio, along with Adler, Meisner & Michael Chekhov Techniques, Viewpoints training, and devised theatre workshops with Fringe Benefits in California. She has taught acting at independent acting schools and college programs in Ontario. Mona holds several certifications in mindfulness, Vipassana meditation, and psychology which she incorporates into her approach to teaching. Mona coaches with PG Vocal Productions from The Factory at Cherry Beach, in Toronto. She is a dual citizen of Canada and the US, and she regularly teaches acting to US students via Skype and on-site at Michiko Studios in Manhattan, NYC. Mona co-founded and was Artistic Director of Actors Theatre of Windsor (ATW) and the Windsor Fringe from 2008- 2011. Theatre directing credits highlights include, It's a Wonderful Life, Inherit the Wind, 12 Angry Men, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Mona was the Artistic Director of the Multimedia Film Festival of York Region from 2012-2013, where she doubled film audiences and developed a range of film acting and film production workshops which she delivered to schools and arts councils across the region. Mona's passion and commitment to the arts and education began in 2000 after directing new Canadian theatre productions in Toronto. It was through directing, that Mona was inspired to pursue and develop a more comprehensive model for the teaching of the craft of acting, in order to generate greater clarity, freedom, and power in the actor's work. While teaching and researching new directions in actor training from 2004 to 2010, Mona laid the foundation for Mastering the Craft (MTC). MTC has received research grant support through NEA funded partners for testing aspects of interactive online training for actors in the American Midwestern states. Native to Canada, Mona's ancestry includes roots in Ireland, Scotland, and Egypt. She is developing a TV Series chronicling the fated international love story and marriage of her grandparents, Ashraf Sami el Baroudi (son of Mahmoud Sami el Baroudi, Premier of Egypt 1882) and Marcia Davidson when they met in Egypt in 1923. This tale traces the el Baroudi family after the 1882 Urabi revolution in Egypt to their exile to Ceylon, through the rise of Nasser in 1954, and the lives of Davidson family in Toronto, and their world travels at the turn of the last century.