Editor’s note: This is the first installment of an ongoing series examining the impact and intersection of Georgia’s creative industries with conventions and conferences that select the state for their events. We were granted unique access to operational and financial data of the annual Junior Theater Festival held in Cobb County. Return to Georgia Entertainment regularly for updates.
By Carol Badaracco Padgett
Georgia possesses a powerhouse event that draws New York’s top talents to travel south each year: the Junior Theater Festival (JTF). Held annually at the Cobb Galleria Centre northwest of downtown Atlanta, the three-day JTF event packs the Galleria venue to capacity with young musical theatre performers – among them, the rising stars of Broadway and the globe – their families and school teachers.
JTF is the world’s largest gathering and celebration of young people who perform musical theater, held in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. For each annual three-day event held in Atlanta, JTF draws in student musical theater troupes from around the world who each perform a 15-minute show from a Broadway musical before a panel of judges made up of global musical theater experts. The weekend includes workshops for students, teachers and parents and a grand finale concert headlined by Broadway’s best. Event sponsors include Disney Musicals, Playbill and Music Theatre International.
At JTF in January 2025 at the Galleria, 22 years after its inception, more than 8,000 musical theater performers, creators, crew, supporters and enthusiasts attended and made metro Atlanta their home base. In addition, the production employed more than 500 Georgia residents as film and television crew members, manufacturer teams, contractors, electricians, visual artists and others who ate, drank and slept all things JTF in preparation for weeks leading up to the event and lingered long afterward to take down the sets. This included ICP, the go-to source for professional audio production solutions at corporate, broadcast, and special events.
Disney was on-hand as well. A broadcast partner since 2005, the entertainment giant supports and capitalizes on the vast potential of JTF by producing and distributing coverage for viewers around the globe. Notably, 2025 marked the first year JTF and Disney filmed a new world premiere Disney musical live on-stage. The production titled Disney Dare to Dream is now being distributed throughout all Disney platforms, including Disney+ and its YouTube and Amazon Prime components.
Economic opportunity ripe for the Peach State
In 2025 alone, JTF provided a $3.4-million boon to Georgia’s economy. An established global entertainment industry-shaping event for more than two decades, JTF also meets the requirements to receive a film tax credit under the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act.
New York-based Junior Theater Festivals Worldwide Founder and CEO Timothy Allen McDonald, a musical theater director, producer, librettist and author, is hopeful that Georgia will recognize and act upon JTF’s mission and might, as Disney has from its inception. (McDonald is also the founder and CEO of Manhattan-based iTheatrics, a company that creates new musicals for family audiences and hosts workshops for students and teachers throughout the year.)
The timing is right for programs like JTF, and there is a market, McDonald reports. The live theatre business is shifting to a new model with staggering economic potential befitting up-and-coming players on the global entertainment stage. In this new paradigm, theatre, film and streaming merge with staggering cultural and economic results.
The blockbuster film “Wicked” (2024), with its 10 Academy Award nominations for cast and production, provides one example of how theatrical productions are illuminating the screen in traditional film theaters today. The musical captivated audiences around the globe and delivered a story to those who may have otherwise never seen the play on Broadway. The results astounded – to the tune of $718 million worldwide at the box office, according to Billboard, which dubbed “Wicked” the top-grossing film adaptation of a Broadway musical. In November 2025, “Wicked Part Two” will hit movie theaters to follow up.
“For live theater, in particular, less than one percent of humans get to see a Broadway show,” McDonald states. “The Broadway Junior shows I create have a North American audience of 36 million. [With that], we’re still only scratching 20 percent (of the potential global viewers). So, if you think about how you provide that access, you have to film it and broadcast it.”
McDonald points to the success of the renowned Broadway musical “Hamilton” – live-streamed on Disney+ in July 2020 – after a 2021 planned physical theatrical release of “Hamilton” fell through due to the coronavirus pandemic.
As Disney’s streaming and broadcast involvement in JTF illustrates, investment in youth theatre, in particular, is smart and signals the deep-reaching tentacles of the theatre-to-film movement. Amazon sees the wisdom, as well, and is now also in distribution collaboration with McDonald.
On Jan. 15, 2025, the day before the three-day JTF event began at the Cobb Galleria, McDonald reported, “Live theater has to have access everywhere, and that means Amazon Prime. So, I have a deal with Amazon for a show which is going to be released on Saturday night, where anyone in the world can watch my Off-Broadway show. This is my future focus.”
