News
September 7, 2021The Music Studio Presents “The Wackadoo Zoo”!
The Music Studio’s “Catch a Rising Star” Class Concludes with a Show to Share Every summer, “Catch a Rising Star” is one of the most 
popular classes offered at The Music Studio, the celebrated music school in Albany, New York. The two-week musical theater course invites children ages 6 to 11 to hone their singing, dancing, and acting skills while rehearsing a show. This year, that show was “The Wackadoo Zoo,” a short musical featuring mixed-up but happy animals who make the wrong sounds.
The class filled up quickly again this year, and the teachers–Noel Liberty, founder and director of The Music Studio, and Heather Ferlo, a new member of the faculty and an accomplished singer–navigated the challenges of masking and social distancing requirements to give students an enriching in-person musical learning experience.
The only problem was the finale. The class traditionally culminates in a day of performances at area retirement communities and assisted living centers. “The residents are such an appreciative audience,” says Mrs. Liberty. “The children truly feel how much impact their work can have and how much joy music can bring to others.”
But this year it was simply too risky for retirement communities to bring in a troupe of unvaccinated kids during a time when local Covid rates were rising again. So The Music Studio hired a videographer to film the performance and made “The Wackadoo Zoo”–along with some cheerful messages from its cast–available to all the homes they would have visited . . . and many, many more.
“There’s no substitute for live performance,” says Mrs. Liberty. “But the wonderful thing about the video is that we can share it with far more people than we would have been able to on a single day of driving around the Capital Region.”
She, Ms. Ferlo, and all the performers in “The Wackadoo Zoo” invite you to watch a trailer for the show here. If you can think of a nursing home or retirement community that might enjoy a video of this summer’s show–or a live performance next summer!–please email The Music Studio to let them know.
