Brandon Marcus talks about voice lessons the way some people talk about sports. Matching pitch, he explains, is a skill that translates far beyond the stage: it teaches focus, communication, and, as he puts it, how to deal with your emotions. “Music without emotion is like a world without color,” he says. That philosophy is the foundation of The Studio, the educational performing arts school he opened on the Eastern Shore a decade ago and has been building ever since.
Marcus grew up in Mobile and moved during his high school years to Chatom, north of Mobile in Washington County. At the University of Alabama, he majored in musical theater and played in the Million Dollar Band during the Shula years, an experience he summarizes with characteristic wit: “I saw a lot of bad football but had some great band experiences.” He remains active with the band’s alumni group.
In 2008 he transferred to the University of South Alabama to finish his undergraduate degree, then earned a Master of Liberal Arts in Leadership and Ethics at Spring Hill College, a business education, he says, that refused to be a typical one. While still a student he worked at Sunny Side Theater, the children’s theater in Mobile, under owner Christopher Paragone, who nudged him toward his own studio. Marcus taught his first voice lessons there and never looked back.
A Studio Built Around Training, Not Shows
The Studio, now located on Friendship Road in Daphne, occupies a specific niche: an educational performing arts studio for kids and teens focused on training rather than producing shows. “There had never been an educational performing arts studio for kids and teens that focused on just training in the area,” Marcus says, “and to this day, we are still the only one.” Instead of mounting productions, the faculty helps each student find performance opportunities suited to them, which keeps instruction individualized.
The faculty numbers eight, each holding or pursuing a degree in their field. Shannon Hastings, who teaches piano and voice, retired from teaching once, then decided after a while that 40 years of experience were too valuable to shelve, and came back because the work keeps her young. The Studio also meets monthly with the Baldwin County Music Teachers Association to stay plugged into the region’s performing arts world.
One-on-One by Design
Except for stage makeup, every class at The Studio is one-on-one. Students identify their goals, and faculty build instruction around them, typically starting with a weekly 30-minute lesson and expanding to an hour or more as students progress. Students start as young as five and train through high school graduation and beyond; some college students return during breaks to keep working with their teachers.
The schedule is famously tight. Marcus books in 30-minute increments, “just like a lawyer,” and can typically describe his calendar a year out. The studio runs primarily as an after-school program from 3 to 8 p.m., with one day per week reserved for homeschool and virtual-school students.
The results show up in the students. Ivey Simpson, a senior at Baldwin County Virtual School, arrives at 3:30 and stays until close, working through voice, acting, and stage makeup, assisting with an introductory stage makeup class, and preparing for what came next: a technical theater scholarship to the University of West Florida and a faculty position at The Studio itself.
Students Working in the Real World
Training at The Studio reaches beyond the lesson room. Students have been cast in commercial series, including a recent shoot for Baldwin Preparatory Academy. Some travel to New York each summer to work with Broadway companies. One former student was cast in a Spider-Man film and now creates content with Marvel. Local film productions cast Studio students in extra roles that, with the training behind them, sometimes grow into much larger parts.
What Marcus notices most about the Eastern Shore is the culture around young people. “People here are so supportive of anything you are interested in,” he says. “It’s truly a unique place.”
The future involves more space and a deeper bench on the technical side: costume design, set design, and possibly stage management. “Everyone should have a place in the arts, and it doesn’t have to be on stage,” Marcus says. Ten years in, The Studio keeps proving that a school built on training, one student at a time, can become one of the Eastern Shore’s quiet cultural assets.