A troupe of skateboarding, hoop-jumping rescue cats is closing out a five-day run at North Nashville's Looby Theater Sunday, October 11, with the final Meowloween Spooktacular performance set for 2 pm. The Amazing Acro-Cats, a traveling show built entirely around formerly homeless cats, has been playing to Music City crowds since last Wednesday, mixing circus-style tricks with an all-cat band finale.
The show, which runs about 90 minutes, features cats riding skateboards, jumping through hoops, ringing bells, and balancing on balls, according to Nashville Lifestyles. Every performer in the troupe is billed as a former orphan, rescue, or stray, and the whole production exists to raise money and awareness for Rock Cats Rescue, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit that presents the tour. Founder Samantha Martin built the act in Chicago back in 2005, evolving it from an earlier show featuring trained rats called the Amazing Acro-Rats, according to Wisevoter, before she took the feline version on the road full-time in an RV in 2009.
Martin trains the cats with clicker training and high-value treats like chicken, tuna, or duck, and the Washington Post notes that performing cats are free to simply decline a trick onstage, with that unpredictability built into the show's comedy. The troupe now travels in a customized Catmobile tour bus outfitted with built-in perches, catwalks, and an onboard foster kitten nursery, per the Washington Post, after the original touring RV was replaced following a 2012 crowdfunding campaign according to Enjoy Florida.
An All-Cat Band Closes Every Show
Each performance ends with Tuna and the Skele-Cats, billed as the world's only all-cat band, playing guitar, drums, and piano, with jazz cats recently joining in on saxophone, trumpet, and clarinet. Tuna, the band's original star, died in 2017 and passed on her cowbells.
The Acro-Cats have built a media profile well beyond the stage, with appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl, CBS News Sunday Morning, PBS Nova's Cat Tales, Netflix's Cat People, and the podcast This Past Weekend with Theo Von. Hoodline has covered an earlier tour stop at San Francisco's Fort Mason.
A Touring Rescue Mission Behind the Tricks
Rock Cats Rescue operates under the slogan “one click at a time” and focuses on cat welfare, rescue, and adoption, finding homes for hundreds of cats and kittens since 2009. By September, the nonprofit had fostered and arranged adoptions for nearly 700 cats and kittens since the foster outreach program began, the Washington Post reports. While the main troupe performs onstage, foster kittens travel with the tour.
The troupe is based at Meowy Manor in Griffin, Georgia.
Why Nashville's Shelters Could Use the Boost
NewsChannel 5 Nashville reported that the Nashville Humane Association had reached full capacity after a surge in pet intakes.
At the same time, community Trap-Neuter-Return programs have helped cut cat intake at Metro Animal Care and Control by more than 50 percent while pushing the shelter's cat save rate up to 90 percent as of August, according to The Freshie & Zero Blog. Diverting community cats from intake has allowed local animal control to put more focus on shelter adoptions, the blog notes.
Inside a Civil Rights-Era Venue
The Spooktacular's host venue, the Looby Theater at 2301 Rosa L Parks Blvd, is a municipal performing arts space managed by Metro Parks Nashville and named for Z. Alexander Looby, the civil rights attorney and former Metro councilman whose home was bombed in 1960 during the Nashville sit-in movement, according to Nashville.gov. Metro Parks rents the theater to community groups for 155 dollars per hour, even as city urban planners work on public design plans for a future expansion of the broader Looby campus, which includes a library, community center, and pool, per Creative Parks Nashville.
The Meowloween Spooktacular's final Nashville performance is scheduled for 2 pm Sunday, October 11, at the Looby Theater, capping a run that began with a 7 pm show last Wednesday and continued with additional performances Thursday, Friday, and twice on Saturday.
