Carol Badaracco Padgett
Senior Staff Writer
It’s about a restaurant industry icon with a chicken sandwich empire who brings to life a world-class creative storyteller community in the South. That’s fodder for a logline, but it’s real life.
The true story is about the life that’s teeming within the creative community of Trilith in Fayetteville, Georgia, just south of downtown Atlanta, the home of the largest purpose-built film and television studio complex in North America.
Who’s the maker? In large part, Georgia native Daniel Truett Cathy, former CEO and current chairman of the board for the multimillion-dollar U.S. fast-food chain Chick-fil-A. Cathy is also Trilith’s original founder and financier.
Welcome to Trilith
If you’ve visited Stonehenge in the UK, you know. A trilith is an amazing monument, one that stands above the landscape and simultaneously settles within it. Meaning “of three stones” in Greek, a trilith is made up of two upright stones with a third, called a lintel, resting across the top. It’s a gateway. A spiritual road sign. A once-in-a-lifetime destination. And Trilith in Georgia is like that, too.
Cathy describes the significance of the Trilith creative enclave this way: “When we say we ‘set the stage,’ we mean we’re building the kind of place where the storymaker has every tool and resource they need to do their best work.”
He’s quick to note that Trilith is about enriching lives, all the way around. “People matter most,” Cathy asserts. “We’re investing in them, their families, their well-being, and their community. These are the men and women whose creativity shapes cultures, stirs hearts, and inspires the world.”
The components Trilith offers to fulfill its mission include Trilith Studios, Town at Trilith, Trilith Foundation, Trilith Institute, and now, Trilith LIVE. While all facets work together synergistically to connect both story and maker, it’s Trilith LIVE that’s bringing them face to face with a world hungry to experience a shared connection.
Trilith LIVE
Annexed within the Town at Trilith, Trilith LIVE is a seven-acre live entertainment complex. Phase one of the facility opened in 2024 and offers two 25,000-square-foot sound stages and nearly 100,000 square feet of support space for productions.
“In that portion of the building, we’re doing live audience filming (game shows, for example),” says live entertainment industry veteran Matt McClain, general manager and executive director of Trilith LIVE. “We will have shot over 400 live audience TV episodes in the first year here.”
With Trilith LIVE’s location on the Town side of Trilith, live-audience attendees also have restaurants, retail shopping, hotels, and the convenience of being right on the main street of town. “They don’t even have to move their car,” McClain adds.
In the whole of Trilith LIVE, actually, the layout of the spaces allows live-entertainment patrons to avoid having to build in two hours just to park and get inside to their seats.
Phase one of Trilith LIVE also offers major convenience on the artist and production side of live entertainment. For example, phase one includes rehearsal space for major touring acts that are headed for amphitheaters, arenas and theater spaces.
McClain notes that Trilith LIVE’s phase one offerings stand out from the production angle, as well, because everything is under one roof.
“So, all of the production support [is there], with production offices, the wardrobe spaces, the catering spaces, the amazing VIP star dressing rooms … everything is in one building under one roof,” he describes.
Phase two is now opening and has three main components. One is a live entertainment venue with a flexible 2,200- to 3,000-seat capacity to accommodate individual shows’ production requirements.
Then, a portion of the live entertainment venue is devoted to a range of different events. “Think concerts, comedians, family shows, corporate and convention business and pretty much anything people are going to and enjoying at entertainment complexes,” McClain says.
A third component of phase two at Trilith LIVE is a luxury cinema. As McClain describes, “Georgia Theatre Company is the operator of that, and we’ve got nine total screens … ranging from micro size of 20-40 capacity all the way up to large-format similar to IMAX and GTX-style screens of 300 capacity.”
The final element of Trilith LIVE’s four components is Passion City Church, which leases space to hold its services and events and rents the live entertainment venue.
For all its components and uses, the Trilith LIVE venue was designed with pinpoint intentionality. “[Its developers and creators] were very intentional about how the venue interacts both with the artist and the fans,” McClain notes. “For instance, our seating engulfs the stage. It creates a very intimate environment. In plain view, the furthest seat from the downstage edge is 70 feet.”
He emphasizes, “Both the artist and the fan truly seek after and desire to have that kind of intimate experience.”
Along with proximity to one another, all throughout Trilith LIVE, the connection between artist and audience is fortified with technology, or not. “We’ll partner with the artist coming in and their production teams to determine usage,” McClain adds. “The options are limitless.”
For example, Trilith LIVE staff can either remove technology, like video screens, from a space or use the equipment to foster an even more immersive environment, where camera shots of the artist or other content can add another layer of sensory experience and emotional connection.
Trilith Institute: Creating the storymaker
Jeffrey Stepakoff is a writer, producer and executive producer with a four-decade Hollywood pedigree. And now, he’s helping develop tomorrow’s storymakers through his role as president and CEO of Trilith Institute, a 501(c)(3) organization that provides education and professional development for story artists.
“Through the Institute, we want to be the leader of what entertainment looks like for years to come,” Stepakoff says. “We’re empowering those who tell stories for today and for future generations.”
He adds, “That’s the mission and purpose of the Trilith Institute–IP creation.”
To that end, Trilith Institute’s educational opportunities include hands-on learning from industry veteran showrunners, directors, and producers; summer camp programs; programs and support for independent filmmakers; fiscal sponsorship for Georgia-based filmmakers; and a full production ecosystem in Georgia, so that writing and distribution can be accomplished locally.
In all its efforts, the Trilith Institute is also about training Georgia’s writers and keeping them working within the state. One of those writers in the headlines today is Ebony Blanding. Blanding’s feature film, “A Mess of Memories,” was produced through her residency as Trilith Institute’s first Emerging Creative in Residence.
Stepakoff’s connection to writers and story artists like Blanding is strong because he is a writer himself. An international best-selling novelist, his nonfiction title, “Billion-Dollar Kiss,” is regarded as the definitive guide to the business of television writing.
He brings into perspective the institute’s work by circling back to Trilith’s overarching comparison to Stonehenge. “Stonehenge is a trilith … a gateway, and regarding the work at Trilith Institute and where we go in the future, it’s for the generations to come, those who are walking through the doorway.”
Trilith and the Amplification of Entertainment
In the realm of big vision, Cathy sums up the entirety of Trilith and its creative offerings, including its timely support of sport.
“In film and television, we’re helping shape culture by giving the storymaker the tools and environment to inspire the world (think of the summertime 2025 blockbuster film “Superman” that utilized Trilith Studios). With live entertainment, we’re building spaces where people can laugh, sing, and celebrate together, because those shared moments strengthen the fabric of our community,” Cathy closes. “And with U.S. Soccer, we’re honored to support a sport that unites people across backgrounds, generations, and nations.”
When story met maker, living in the modern world became a more deeply connected and communal experience. And Trilith is the proof.
This article appeared in the 2026 edition of the Creative Economy Journal. See more from the Journal here.
