Georgia lands location of prestigious Sundance television program

Though Atlanta lost out on its bid to become the next location of the Sundance Institute’s eponymous film festival, the metro area will soon become the home to one of its writers’ programs.

The nonprofit’s weeklong Episodic Program, which provides writers an opportunity to workshop a television pilot and receive mentorship from industry veterans, will relocate its annual program to the historic Dunaway Gardens in Newnan ahead of its 2026 class. This is the first time since its 2014 inception that the program will be held outside of Park City, Utah.

For six days starting in May, up to 10 fellows will work out of the Newnan property to develop their writing skills, pitch their television series and participate in story meetings, panels and writers rooms focused on advancing their concept.

“I am so honored and just excited that we’re going to be able to bring this to Georgia and particularly the Atlanta area,” said Dunaway Gardens owner Tena Clark, a longtime music producer, who acquired the property about four years ago.

The Sundance program adds another television writing opportunity to Georgia, which has long lagged behind Los Angeles and New York in its writers’ rooms. Most of the scripts shooting in Atlanta are conceptualized and drafted outside of the state. In recent years, Georgia’s film programs have introduced programs to combat this.

The announcement comes less than a year after Atlanta did not make the cut to become the next host city of the Sundance Film Festival. It was one of six finalists to move forward after the festival’s leadership announced it would consider new locations after its contract with its longtime home of Park City expired in 2026. Boulder, Colorado, was the winning pick and will begin hosting Sundance in 2027.

Dunaway Gardens is set on about 64 acres overlooking Cedar Creek, according to a National Historic Register of Places registration form. It was the passion project of actor Hetty Jane Dunaway, one of the highest paid talents on the Chautauqua circuit, which were traveling performances of educators, speakers, musicians and other entertainers popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She spent years turning the property into a training ground for performance artists with natural springs, a terraced outdoor amphitheater, wood-framed dwellings and an inn, among other features, accord to the Historic Register.

Its facilities were used both by small-town and nationally recognized theater groups. Walt and Ray Disney, Minnie Pearl and Tallulah Bankhead were all reported to have stayed at the gardens, Clark said.

“What she created here was like the original Sundance,” Clark said. “Her mission was all about teaching, writing, dancing, singing, producing, directing, all of the above to high school and college age kids, and creating and performing the shows here.”

The facilities at Dunaway Gardens were used both by small-town and nationally recognized theater groups, including this original amphitheater. (Courtesy of Dunaway Gardens)

The property laid dormant after Dunaway’s death in 1961, becoming slowly overtaken by kudzu and beavers bent on turning creeks into marshland, until it was acquired by Jennifer and Roger Bigham in 2000. The duo helped restore the property into a venue for weddings, receptions and other social gatherings.

About four years ago, Clark and her business partner acquired the gardens and more than 200 acres of surrounding land with plans to turn the property into an arts hub and retreat over the next several years. It’s an ambitious, cost-intensive plan, one that has already required rezoning and consultations with conservation companies and master gardeners to preserve the gardens’ greenery.

But before shovels are in the ground and construction loans are secured, housing the Sundance episodic program is one step toward accomplishing her vision.

The relationship between Clark and the Sundance Institute, which was founded by the late actor Robert Redford, goes back several years. Clark said she has for many years been close with people involved in the nonprofit, including Pat Mitchell, who served as the chairman of the board for several years and now lives in Atlanta. She also attended the festival for decades.

Clark said she played host to executives with the festival at the gardens about two years ago and they loved it. Michelle Satter, the nonprofit’s founding senior director of artist programs and an architect behind the episodic program, was one of them.

“She stood at the amphitheater, and (as) I was talking about the vision of the property and the place, she said, ‘I feel like this was when I stood at that mountain with (Redford), and he was talking about what he wanted to create there,” Clark said.