When I was living in Georgia, I took my child to AWP for a few years. They fell in love from the moment they set foot in the place. It was wonderful for a long time. As the years went by and teachers came and went, my child's opinion of this establishment began to steadily drop, as did my own. Now being a few months and several states away from the experience, I can accurately say why Atlanta Workshop Players is not a professional or good place to take aspiring actors or filmmakers. My biggest grievance with this establishment is the fact that they claim to provide "professional-level training to challenge and inspire diverse people through extraordinary productions in a joyful, supportive, non-competitive atmosphere." This is a quotation from their website and is almost entirely false. I will address it point by point.
First off, Atlanta Workshop Players is far from professional-level ANYTHING. Their musical theatre productions always turned out atrocious whenever we went to see one, and when we sent him to movie camp, the final products of the films had terrible lighting (and occasionally sound) and for the most part poor acting. It was honestly appalling that things that we PAID MONEY FOR (non-profit organization my ass) turned out so badly.
They claim to "inspire diverse people." When my child came home from movie camp, the first thing they remarked on was that many of the stars of the films were Caucasian boys and girls. We are a black family. While I won't pretend that we weren't a little angry at the "white-ness" of the films, it would have been made better had more of the people fit into the roles they'd been cast to play. An obviously not college age girl was supposed to be choosing a college to go to. There was an obvious age disparity between the leads of a romantic comedy film, and the girl's discomfort was obvious throughout the entire thing. The only exception to this was an annoying and nonsensical segment that happened twice in one film, where a multiracial boy had obviously just been handed a phone and told to film people in character doing whatever they wanted. I won't call Lynn Stallings racist, but it was noticeable how many of the lead roles were filled by white kids.
The atmosphere at Atlanta Workshop Players is "joyful" (read: hyper and out of control) to an extreme fault, so I'll move on to "supportive," which it is not. The teachers themselves were all good to my child, though I've heard horror stories about kids being driven to tears by irate and/or insensitive teachers (while this happens more often in the industry than people might think, it makes the "supportive" part of the quotation utter bullshit.) My main concern is the students. Many of them are viciously unpleasant to each other and cut each other down on a daily basis, at least according to my child, whom, after I witnessed some of the behavior while picking them up from one of AWP's "lock-ins," I was inclined to believe.
The last thing I'll talk about regarding this quotation is the fact that "non-competitive" is used to describe the environment, which, as my child can attest, is not so. Students of this Special Snowflake Factory are constantly bragging about their last audition or job booking, which invariably leads to a round of everyone's favorite game: "That's NOTHING, let me tell you why I'm better." I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to take someone's child aside and tell them that sometimes being a good friend and a good person in general is about shutting the hell up and listening when somebody is excited about their accomplishment instead of shutting them down with something that they themselves did that was SO MUCH COOLER. I won't even mention the fact that the friends in the senior musical theatre company that my son has made have told him that Lynn Stallings plays favorites. It's obvious, too, if you go to enough of the musical theatre productions. The same damn kids are in the lead roles every time for as many years as they're in company. This makes it an INCREDIBLY competitive environment, as the other kids are either left desperately trying to show Lynn Stallings that they deserve a chance to be in the spotlight or they're left to fight it out over the smaller, less significant roles. This even spills over into film, as, at the movie camp, the multiracial boy who was just given a phone with a camera and left to his own devices is also a musical theatre favorite, which says a lot about what sort of qualities Lynn Stallings values (egoism, self-obsession, inability to listen to any authority figure or rational-minded human).
All in all, Atlanta Workshop Players is a shadow of its former self. While they once cared about inclusion, acceptance, and making sure every child has a fun time, all Lynn Stallings gives a shit about now is money. I'm sure the Atlanta Workshop Players name once meant something, but now it's just an overpriced place for parents to leave their spoiled brats. read more