TEMPO The Show | About Tempo

TEMPO is a musical dramedy podcast series that follows the ups, the downs, and the frenemy status of a group of middle-school Arts Academy students who hail from all different walks of life and artistic passions.

About the Show

Everyone wants to attend the famous TEMPO Arts Academy, but only a few can make the cut. Kids from all backgrounds and areas of the city come together at TEMPO, bringing their unique perspectives, artistic talents, and bagged lunches with them. Special to TEMPO, the school mixes students from different majors to see what creative magic they can make together. Singers with dancers, actors with chefs with video game designers, it’s all an artistic melting pot. Collaboration is key at TEMPO, but along with that comes the drama!

Meet SIDNEY, a first-year music student. It’s not easy to fit in or stand out when you walk the same halls as wiz kid hip-hop dancers, guitar virtuosos, locally renowned graffiti artists and fashion designers. SIDNEY tries to navigate her place at her new school, find her voice, and not get too lost along the way, figuratively and literally.

Her new best friends are MAKSIM, a tap shoe-loving, J-Lo-idolizing, dance major; RAJ, a multi-faceted visual artist whose mind sometimes goes faster than his mouth; and on-again/off-again frenemy drama student JING, who has already starred in 14 commercials! And will never stop mentioning it to you.

Our quartet embarks on their artistic journeys - under the ever-watchful eye of the slightly frenetic but super upbeat teacher, former Mega Pop Star, MISS MARLOWE.

Each semester, Sidney and company sing, dance, and stumble their way through the fast-paced daily rhythm at TEMPO, while discovering their own identity, confidence and creative sparks.

Tempo takes listeners on different daily adventures inside a middle school of the arts, built around a song by award-winning kids pop songwriter, Marlowe Stone (Miss Marlowe). Each musical number propels TEMPO’s stories along while also laying down a killer soundtrack.

TEMPO is what happens when you blend "School of Rock", "Saved by the Bell", and "High School Musical" into a giant smoothie and then slurp it through an infectious pop music straw! And this is just the first semester!

Meet the Cast

Sidney Carter

played by Sadie C. Grace

Sidney has been writing songs even before she could write and singing before she could speak. As soon as she could hold a guitar, or sit upright at a piano, she was knocking out hits. Born with a hearing impairment, Sidney never lets it, nor the hearing aids she wears, get in the way of anything. When people first find out, they assume it must be a challenge for her, but Sidney quickly shows them it is in fact a strength. *Sadie Conrad is a hearing-impaired actor/singer.

Maksim Petrovic

played by Marko Andelic

Maksim is a dancer extraordinaire. He is interested in all styles, from ballet to zapateado, idolizing everyone from Fred Astaire to Beyonce. He has a special place in his heart, and his shoes, for tap dancing. He learned it from his father before he died, which is why he holds it so close. Maksim escapes the chaos of his family’s apartment through his creative outlet and his friends. He is funny, empathetic, and extremely supportive.

Raj Patel

played by Ishaan Grotra

Raj is a visual artist. Owing to his hyperactive mind, Raj fills it with pretty much all mediums. He paints. He draws. He sculpts. He photographs. He films. He sometimes combines it all into a multimedia display that somehow still works. He is very friendly. Maybe too friendly. He will insert himself into any situation, whether he’s invited or not.

Jing Li

played by Caitlyn Go

An Actor with a capital A. Confident, sarcastic, and wildly perceptive, if sometimes slightly less than tactful. Jing can tap into incredibly deep emotions while acting, but those same emotions are harder to come by in the rest of their closed-off real-life personality. They have confidence to the moon and back when it comes to acting. When having to try something out of their comfort zone, Jing often tries to back out, not wanting to look bad at all.

Miss Marlowe

played by Marlowe Stone

Former mega popstar turned teacher. Alanis meets Miss Frizzle. Miss Marlowe sometimes lets her memories get the best of her, but it never interferes with her support for her students. Helping them embrace their inner Taylor Swift or Frida Kahlo or Jamie Oliver is a lifelong mission of hers.

Season Overview

The four middle-school students are going to learn a lot about their arts, as well as themselves. Some examples include everyone finding out about Sidney’s hearing aids, and her wanting to show them that it never holds her back from anything. Maksim working on adding some more excitement to his performances. Raj coming to school after a night of playing video games and trying to hide the fact that he's sleepwalking from Miss Marlowe. The semester culminating in everyone having to work together for the end-of-semester mural project. Blending all their different disciplines to work together on one harmonious piece, which initially creates chaos, but eventually comes together. Hopefully.

Marlowe Stone

Creator/Showrunner/Composer

Singer/Songwriter Marlowe Stone is a Juno Award nominee and winner of multiple international songwriting awards. She specializes in writing pop songs for kids and mentoring and working with up-andcoming young musicians.

Adam Rotstein

Creator/Writer/Showrunner

Adam Rotstein has been writing children’s content for over 15 years, primarily animation in the 6-9 age range. His work has been broadcast in countries all over the world, spanning from preschool to tweens to young adults and from Corus to Netflix to Nickelodeon to Fox and beyond.

Michelle Melanson

Executive Producer/Distributor

A Bafta and Emmy Nominated Children's producer, Michelle's career spans almost 30 years. She has won multiple awards including a Canadian Screen Award and a Juno Award for Best Children’s Album. In 2021, she received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Youth Media Alliance.

Meet the Crew

About the Music

Singer-songwriter Marlowe Stone signed her first music publishing deal at 16, was a Producer for radio/TV ads and interviewed rock stars for Canada’s CTV network. When Marlowe noticed a major gap in the kids’ music market (after The Wiggles but way before Cardi B) she shook up the category with her award-winning Marlowe & The MiX "family pop". Her upbeat, hit-radio-sounding originals, full of positive messages for kids have been nominated for The JUNO Awards - Best Children’s Album and have won numerous, international songwriting awards in the Children’s Category (John Lennon Songwriting, International Songwriting, Independent Music Awards – People’s Choice). Lately, Marlowe has been mentoring young artists making their own marks in the music biz (Johnny Orlando, AJA, Emilie) and she was recently awarded a FACTOR grant by the Canadian government to create more groundbreaking, musical content for kids, like Tempo.