We were lucky to catch up with Don Jones recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Don, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

After living in NYC for 15 years and being a musical theatre pianist/accompanist at all levels of theatre, I realized when I moved to Atlanta that the city lacks a bit compared to other large cities as far as continuing musical theatre education is concerned. I wanted to create AIMT to give local actors the same opportunities their counterparts in other large cities have. AIMT is run by three of us who are passionate about empowering and enriching the careers and lives of Atlanta actors, as well as elevating the industry in general. I knew that with my background in musical theatre, I could help actors become better in all aspects of musical theatre. And I knew that Kristine Reese and Greg London, who partnered with me to open this nonprofit, would do the same.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have been a musical theatre pianist/keyboardist/accompanist and conductor for about 25 years. I have played piano on Broadway and worked as a studio musician for television. After living in NYC for 15 years, I moved down to Atlanta to pursue my MBA. I opened a performing arts company called The Studios Brookhaven and then most recently co-founded The Atlanta Institute for Musical Theatre. I am also an adjunct faculty member at Brenau University and the Director of Music at Brookhaven United Methodist Church.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

I have two business partners who co-founded The Atlanta Institute for Musical Theatre (AIMT) with me.

I met Kristine Reese when I was hired by City Springs Theatre Company in Sandy Springs to help music director a showcase for the pre-professional company, which largely consisted of very talented high school students. Kristine has an impressive resume that includes Broadway and National Tour credits, but more importantly, she is a fabulous voice teacher and communicator. I watched as she guided these gifted kids to sing at an even higher caliber each week. Many younger students in musical theatre mistake yelling for belting. They listen to their idols hit such high, beautiful notes but they do not have the training yet to sing those notes properly. Kristine is passionate about working with singers to learn healthy and correct singing. Beyond that, Kristine is passionate about empowering singers to be more comfortable and confident on stage. It was a no-brainer to ask her to help with AIMT.

My other business partner is Greg London, who I met when he was the director of Wizard of Oz at Atlanta Lyric Theatre and I was the music director. In our pre-production meetings, I immediately realized how passionate he was about the storytelling and the essence of the show. Sometimes with older, established musicals, it’s difficult to find new ways to tell the story. Greg was so excited and approached each meeting with a wonderful, eager, creative mindset. He is also a genuinely kind, humble person. Juilliard trained, a National Tour performer, and the Artistic Director of the Long Bay Theatre in Myrtle Beach, it could be easy for someone like that to be egotistical and difficult to work with, but Greg is anything but. Greg always tries to find the positives in each moment and if those are difficult to find in the stress of live theatre, he makes people laugh.

I knew having both of these people on the team with me would be a beautiful collaboration.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I opened another company called The Studios Brookhaven in 2022. Although we opened our doors that year, the idea began in 2021. TSB is a performing arts company that mostly specializes in children’s group classes as well as private music instruction.

We knew that during COVID, we did not want to risk paying the high rent prices of the area we wanted to be in, so we worked with Brookhaven United Methodist Church to renovate about 1800 square feet and open our doors. This space was extremely dated and we  renovated every single millimeter of the 1800 square foot space in order to meet the high standard that many in the community would expect. When we opened, COVID was starting to back down, but it was still very much a part of the world and masks were worn by most. Attendance was not great.

The first six months or so were difficult to say the least. But I knew that the community needed something like this. I also knew that I was in an atypical position of being a professional musician with an MBA, so I felt like I was more equipped to not just open the business, but hire the people that would help it thrive. With the help of my wife, I put various plans into place that really started paying off after about 10 months of opening. If I had backed down and given up early on, The Studios Brookhaven wouldn’t exist and the connections that led me to form AIMT also wouldn’t have existed.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.atlantaimt.org
• Instagram: @theaimt
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089063775201