About Us
Theatre By Kids
Footloose Theatre strives to create a supportive community amongst kids and teens that allows them to discover passions and learn skills. While Footloose Theatre focuses on youth involvement and development, we will occasionally have opportunities for adults as well.
Theatre is more than performing in a show, it is creating a story and theatrical experience with a community. Therefore, Footloose Theatre wants to allow the students to be involved at all parts of the process: from acting to creative decisions (i.e. directing, choreography) to design to backstage to writing and to all else.
Theatre is about making something with a community! Within this community the students can learn (perhaps from an older student), try, fail, try again, and succeed to make something great and truly theirs.
- Theatre Games
- Vocal Techniques
- Character & Scene Acting
- Dancing
- Technical Design
- Having Fun & Making Friends
Meet The Team
Our team and staff members are carefully selected members of theatre and education communities who are passionate about theatre and dedicated to the community it can create.
Liam Pickett
Founder / Board Member
Maura Pickett
Producer / Board Member
Shay Allen
Executive Administrator
(Director of THE ADDAMS FAMILY)
Aram Taleporos
Lighting Design / Board Member
Kat Capalbo
Summer Camp Advisor
(Director)
Paul Angelo
Director
Rose Biggerstaff
Music Director - THE ADDAMS FAMILY
Wendy Camilli
Music Director Advisor
Lily Corde
Choreographer Advisor
Sally Floyd
Costume Coordinator
Douglas Gladstone
(Director)
Jennifer Langlais
Staff Assistant
Director / Choreographer
Andrew Osterhout
(Stage Manager - THE ADDAMS FAMILY)
Nicole Osterhout
(Choreographer - THE ADDAMS FAMILY)
Susan Turner
Stage Manager Advisor
Our Story
Our summer program grew out of a summer camp that Liam started in 2021 at The Doane Stuart School where he taught at the time. He and his drama club students came up with the idea for this in January of that year which as you may recall was a challenging time for most people. It was the worst part of the Covid-19 pandemic. Covid cases were reaching their highest levels, vaccines were only just starting to come out, and after being able to gather a bit outside seeing each other again, we were all thrown back into the isolation of our houses in the dark winter. Theater was still shut down everywhere and we were starved for some kind of “normal” production. Planning for the summer gave us all so much hope during those hard times. We were going to do the musical Footloose.
While we never actually performed Footloose (we did Little Shop of Horrors instead), but the hope that we had all found that winter in planning for Footloose continued to live on in all of us as well as the idea of being able to escape the stresses and chaos of the outside world through theater.
And that became our mission for this group: To give all kids the opportunity to escape the stresses of everyday life, to build confidence in themselves, to discover their passions, and help them to forge meaningful relationships with each other. The formal definition of the word “footloose” is “to travel freely and do as one pleases without the responsibilities and commitments.” We want theater to be a place where kids can escape the rest of the world and just be themselves.
After Liam suddenly passed away in November 2023, we thought the best way to remember and honor him was to make sure that his mission was carried forth.
And in the famous words of our namesake movie, “Everybody cut loose, footloose…”
Past Productions
Mr. Liam D. Pickett (1992-2023)
About Liam
Liam had been amongst the theater since before he could walk: scooting across the Green Room floor in Home Made Theater in Saratoga Springs, NY. And since then, Liam has never left the theater, always working either backstage, designing, on crews, or on-stage. To him theater was a place to go to relax, reset, find community, and escape from the “drama” of the world outside the theater.
At Home Made Theater, while Liam was involved since he was a kid, as an adult worked as Assistant Stage Manager, co-Properties Designer, Stage Manager, and many more supportive roles. He even served as Assistant Director for Almost, Maine (one of his favorite plays). In 2022, he made his on-stage debut as Voice Two and Uncle Terry in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. After his sudden passing in November 2023, Home Made Theater’s production of Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure was dedicated to his memory.
From 2011-2015, Liam’s attended Marist College, where he majored in Biochemistry and Secondary Education with a minor in theater, as well as being heavily involved in the theater productions (then known as MCCTA). His involvement with MCCTA helped him cement his love and skill for theater being involved in stage management, directing, and serving as the club’s treasurer. The signed poster of his favorite Marist show, The Princess King, still hangs on the wall above his bed. At Marist, he learned the strong community aspect of theater carrying with him the pre-show “whether the weather” chant which is still repeated before each show.
Perhaps, his greatest accomplishment was founding and directing Footloose Theater Programs, a youth theater to provide a creative space producing high-quality summer camps and productions for kids ages 10-18. With Footloose Theater Programs, he produced Little Shop of Horrors, Legally Blonde, and You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. He founded Footloose Theater Programs after seeing the mental toll the pandemic lockdowns had on people, and kids in particular, and saw the benefit that theater could bring saying, “now more than ever, we all need theater.”
Outside of the theater, Liam worked as a high school chemistry teacher at The Doane Stuart School and Amsterdam High School where he taught with an assertive kindness, pushing students to reach their potential whatever it may be. As he said, “I have more confidence in them [the students], than they do.” His love for theater even seeped into his teaching from restarting the drama club at Doane Stuart to staging an interactive murder mystery crime scene investigation as a Halloween chemistry lesson. He also enjoyed being outdoors, hiking, spending time with family, writing, baking, and building with LEGOS®.
He carried his kindness, compassion, and understanding in everything he did creating a community where: