At the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center on June 27, the velvet curtains rose to dozens of high schoolers dancing across the stage in City Springs Theatre Conservatory's production of Footloose. The musical's bright lights and high kicks illustrated the ambitions of metro Atlanta teens who are chasing their Broadway dreams.
“I’ve grown my confidence in every area, but specifically in dance,” said Symone Munoz, who co-starred in the production, in an interview with GPB after the performance. “Now I’m like, ‘Well, I could be dancing in a Broadway show!’”
Munoz is a 2025 graduate of the conservatory's theatre program and one of more than 40 students selected for the elite pre-professional summer musical. Footloose, known for its infectious rhythms and rebellious spirit, was the perfect match for the raw talent that filled the rehearsal halls.
At the City Springs Theatre Conservatory, preparation for Footloose and other productions isn’t like your typical musical theatre summer camp; it’s part of a Broadway pipeline helping students and young pros across metro Atlanta gain experience and connections in the theater business.
“I feel like it’s really preparing us for the professional world,” said Addison Ridley, a 17-year-old rising senior at Walton High School who is part of the conservatory, where kids from elementary through high school learn choreography and songs and are mentored by actual Broadway artists. For example: Footloose was directed by Broadway veterans Kristine Reese and Billy Tighe who now serve full time as instructors at CSTC.
“They are more than mentors. They are family,” Munoz said. “We get a toolbox of certain things we maybe wouldn’t get from somebody who hasn’t worked on Broadway. They help us navigate things and share knowledge we couldn’t find on our own.”
For many students, it’s an awakening.
“Before this program I did not sing at all,” said 17-year-old Caleb Mosley. “But I had to learn how to sing and now I’m actually going to school for musical theater.”
Caroline Smith, 15, recalled how Reese helped her see the voice as a storytelling tool.
“Kristine [Reese] really taught me how to act through a song,” she said. “She was like, you don’t always have to hit a perfect note; what matters is that you tell the story.”
The training is rigorous, but the results are visible. Students like Smith and Mosley said they transformed over the course of the summer, not just in their abilities but in a sense of purpose and possibilities.
“It’s one thing to dream about Broadway,” Mosley said. “It’s another thing to be in a room where people believe you belong there.”
“I used to think I could never do this,” Smith added. “But now I see myself doing this long-term. This program made me realize that I want this.”
Ridley agreed. “My dream is to perform on Broadway and teach people what I’ve learned,” she said. “I want to spread what they gave me.”
Since its founding in 2018, the conservatory has served more than 150,000 students across metro Atlanta, according to Natalie DeLancey, executive director of CSTC, and its programs will reach 350 students per week during the 2025-2026 school year.
“Our mission is to cultivate the next generation of theater artists,” DeLancey said. “We’ve had alumni go on to top musical theater programs across the country — and that all starts with giving them access and opportunity here at home.”
CTSC is one of many theater companies that train actors for future success. The Alliance Theatre in Atlanta is world-renowned for its work with both adult and child actors, serving more than 50,000 students annually and originating plays that continue on to Broadway, including Aida, The Color Purple and The Prom.
Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre fosters playwriting and acting through its Teen Ensemble program. The Strand Theatre in Marietta, The Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville (both suburbs north of Atlanta) and, southwest of the city, the Legacy Theatre in Tyrone, Ga., are other organizations in the metro area that train and hire young actors for work on professional stages.
Georgia high schools that feed this flow: Cobb County Center for Excellence in the Performing Arts at Pebblebrook High School offers a conservatory-style curriculum in voice, dance, and drama. Pebblebrook alumni have gone on to appear in national tours and Broadway productions including Hamilton, MJ the Musical and Hadestown. Central Gwinnett, Dalton, Duluth, West Forsyth, Lambert Milton and Roswell High Schools are also among the strongest programs statewide.
Each year, students compete at the Georgia High School Musical Theatre Awards — known as the Shuler Awards — which celebrate excellence in student musical theater across the state. Named for Marietta, Ga., native and Tony Award winner Shuler Hensley and administered by the ArtsBridge Foundation, part of the National High School Musical Theatre Awards and the Broadway League, the "Shulers" often serve as a launchpad to national recognition.
“The idea is to expose them to this kind of quality of education and opportunity so they can go as far as they want to go,” Hensley, a Broadway favorite who also serves as artistic director at City Springs Theatre Company, said. “There are so many people in our state that are just naturally gifted. We just need to connect the dots and show them the way.”
For Hensley, who played unforgettable roles in shows such as Oklahoma, Les Miserables and The Music Man, the mission is broader than just stage success. “It’s not just about making Broadway stars — it’s about making good people, creating community,” he said.
Georgia-born actors such as Sutton Foster (Statesboro, Ga.,) Titus Burgess (Athens, Ga.) and Danielle Brooks (Augusta, Ga.) are familiar names and many other performers and artists in the theater world hail from the state. Jobs in this business are also coveted by thousands of students who continue to pursue their dreams after graduation.
Kiara Lee, a Kennesaw Mountain High School alum and 2024 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, now lives in Manhattan and is inching closer to Broadway.
Lee performed in CSTC’s White Christmas in 2023, and said time spent on that production was a stepping stone in her career.
“It affirms you as a working actor,” Lee said. “You look back and you realize that all of the late nights, long rehearsal days, intense performing and training all contributes to something bigger, and it pays off eventually.”
Lee co-starred in the Broadway touring production of the musical Back to the Future last year and is now focused on her first off-Broadway debut as Heather Duke in Heathers: The Musical.
For many of Georgia’s young performers, theater is a calling without an address.
Naomi Green, a graduate of Kennesaw State University and the Cobb County Center for Excellence in the Performing Arts at Pebblebrook High School, has worked in productions at venues such as the Aurora Theatre, the Strand and the Atlanta Opera. She also danced in Ragtime at CSTC.
“Of course, Broadway is the goal, but I have so many things in entertainment that I want to do and so many people I want to work with,” she said. “There’s a whole world out there. Theater is everywhere, I want to see the world with it and I want the world to see me.”
In a world where only a fraction of performers make it to Broadway, programs like the City Springs Theatre Conservatory don’t just prepare students for the spotlight — they help them discover the power of their own voices.
Roger Wong starred in CSTC's Footloose and is headed to Northwestern University in Illinois this fall to study classical voice and mechanical engineering. He said pursuing his passion means balancing his love for music with other skills and talents.
“That's one of the reasons I chose Northwestern, because their theater is so open to everyone,” Wong said. “It's gonna be busy, but I'll work around it.”
When asked if he planned to continue pursuing musical theater beyond school, Wong didn’t hesitate.
“For sure. Theater is so important to me,” he said. “When I was going through the college search…I started thinking about what my life would be if I didn't have theater. I started to realize that it didn't make sense to me. So no matter what … I'll keep pursuing that. Yeah, that's huge to me, that's my dream.”
City Springs Theatre Company kicks off its 2025-2026 season with conservatory performances of Suessical Jr. on Aug. 16 and Aug. 17, followed by company productions of The Producers (Sept. 5 to Sept. 21), The Wizard of Oz (Dec. 12 to Dec. 28), Come From Away (March 13 to March 29) and Mean Girls (May 1 to May 17).
An earlier version of this story erroneously said the conservatory has served more than 1,600 students across metro Atlanta.
