Today we’d like to introduce you to Cory Phelps.
Hi Cory, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Upon graduating undergrad from Western Carolina University, I came to Atlanta ten years ago for the apprenticeship program at the Aurora Theatre. Throughout my time here, I have served as an actor, director, teaching artist, and arts administrator across the city’s vibrant theatre scene. I am now the co-founder and Artistic Director of Destination Theatre. I founded this company alongside my wife, Amy Duffy, who is also a performer and music director in town. Destination Theatre is dedicated to excellent and imaginative touring productions and high quality educational theatre experiences for people of all ages, backgrounds, and demographics. At DT, we create touring theatre programs for youth, seniors, and everyone in between. We do a great deal of work in senior communities, youth behavioral health centers, schools, and in summer camps across the country. We curate tailor-made theatre education curricula for students of all abilities and all ages. We aim to give every person in every community a touch-point for art by meeting them where they are both geographically and in life, through theatre. I have simply loved my time here in Atlanta and this arts community is truly something special. In May of 2025, I graduated with my MFA in Directing from the University of Idaho’s distance learning program, an innovative master’s degree programming for the working artist. I’ve just started taking steps into the world of academia. I’m an adjunct professor at my alma mater, WCU where I teach acting to some incredible students. In the spring, I’ll teach a couple classes at the Gainesville Theatre Alliance. I look forward to continuing to gig, serve others through our work at Destination Theatre, and continue this new journey in academia.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Building an arts career is a not a luxurious adventure. While I’ve been blessed to maintain a pretty steady line up of acting and directing gigs, there are times the piecemeal nature of the work we do can be exhausting. Creating any business takes some serious grit, creating an arts company takes heck of a lot of grit, hope, faith, and a deep desire to make the world better. It takes a monumental amount of effort to get a theatre company off the ground and sustain it, I’m lucky to get to do this work alongside an incredible team, including my wife, Amy.
The climb, the fight, the grind – whatever you want to call it, is incredibly hard sometimes but if I’m being completely honest, it is all worth it when we see the impact our work has on people across the country. Whether we are working with adults living with severe and persistent mental illnesses in Florida, youth supported by breathing technology in Ohio, or creating theatre and therapy programs for children in grief, performing for the seventieth time this year at a memory care facility, or sending our two-person version of A Christmas Carol? to local breweries across Atlanta, it is not lost on us that theatre can create community, camaraderie, and a renewed sense of self for people of all ages.
As you know, we’re big fans of Destination Theatre. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Destination Theatre sends theatre performances and educational theatre experiences across the country. We’ve toured Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, and Michigan with our theatre productions. Our educational and theatre & therapy programs have reached Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, Alabama, and in 2026, we will send a new workshop series to Colorado and work with youth at a bereavement camp.
We take theatre out of the fancy building and bring it to where people are already gathering. This could look like a brewery, pub, or bar, a regular stopping point for people in the community and unexpected performance space for a piece of theatre. It could be an independent or assisted living community, where seniors get to see theatre from the comfort of their own home without the barriers of travel and transportation. Our shows tour youth behavioral health centers across Atlanta, where young people are receiving some very necessary mental health services and we get to play a small part in their day and in their treatment plans through our shows, theatre and therapy programs, and other educational offerings.
Like I said before, Destination Theatre meets people where they are both geographically and in life through theatre. One of the great joys of our field and what feels like a core value of our theatre community is radical acceptance. If we create theatre opportunities for people of all ages, backgrounds, demographics, and all-abilities, we are creating spaces where folks are radically accepted for all that they are and in turn, are given opportunities to explore themselves creatively and personally. Whether you’re doing a big show or a 45-minute workshop, theatre exists to serve others and serve communities. I’m grateful we get to be in servitude through theatre.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I think one should walk through life with a healthy amount of risk. Some wonderful opportunities come from a risky move here and there. Any gig artist has entered into a risky business. We don’t always know where the next check is coming from or when the next job will arrive. Similarly, building a non-profit arts organization is risky in many ways. We dedicate a great deal of time and energy to our mission but the funding options many of us once had aren’t around anymore so we are having to get creative with budgets, grants, and donations. With that said, artists are some of the greatest “persevere-ers” to exist and persevere, we shall!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.destinationtheatre.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/destinationtheatre/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/destinationtheatre
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@destinationtheatre3384
- Other: Cory’s IG: @cmphelps
