For Broadway veterans Stephen and Juliette Trafton, the arts are more than entertainment. “They unlock our imaginations and open up our hearts to explore what it means to be human and to explore this complex and mysterious world we live in,” says Stephen Trafton.
Stephen, a native of Kentucky, grew up listening to stage hits on family road trips. Acting in high school musicals naturally followed. For Juliette, an Orlando native, her childhood indoctrination into show tunes included listening to her mother play the Phantom of the Opera score on piano.
Both headed to New York City immediately after graduating from college. The pair met while touring with Phantom, then married and had three children. Life began to change, with commercials and ministry events replacing their travel-heavy stage careers—which also included stints with Les Misérables and The Fantasticks—for the sake of their children.
In 2019, the couple came to Orlando to be near extended family. Their professional activities comprised holding concerts, leading worship and performing books of the Bible in their Living Letters series.
Then it hit each of them separately: What if they could create and fund an arts organization that allowed them to do all this and more? Says Juliette: “We had never, ever considered doing anything like that.”
In May, with funding from a newly created grant from the Creative Arts Collective, the couple founded RESOUND, a performing arts nonprofit that curates theatrical performances, artistic gatherings and creative resources that awaken wonder and invite audiences to explore what it means to be human.
On Saturday, January 25, 2026, they’ll present The Traftons: Live in Concert in the Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater at Dr. Phillips Center. Showtime will be 7 p.m. The performance, which features songs from musical theater, attracted a full house earlier this summer at the Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center in The Villages.
The duo will follow that in February with an ecumenical creative arts night at Lake Eola Park in Orlando. Then next summer, they’ll host a youth arts camp while offering ongoing support to local worship leaders.
Dr. Phillips Center is located 445 S. Magnolia Avenue, Orlando. For more information, visit drphillipscenter.org or call 407.358.6603. For more information about RESOUND, visit resoundarts.com.
