Atlanta Arts category interest

City Springs Theatre set the stage for the love story of Arielle Geller and Haden Rider last summer. Now the couple looks forward to a marriage of creative minds.

August 26, 2023, was a magical night for Arielle Geller and Haden Rider.

The pair have been faculty in the City Springs Conservatory program for a few years. Rider is a vocal teacher and the competition team director, while Geller is a dance teacher and the competition team choreographer. Their love story began budding as cast mates in another production — the now-shuttered Atlanta Lyric Theatre’s run of Jesus Christ Superstar — in 2016, with Rider starring as the son of God and Geller as an ensemble member and co-choreographer.

They barely talked then. They’re married now.

Surrounded by the nearly 40 City Springs Theatre Conservatory students whom they’d spent the summer training for Legally Blonde Jr., Geller and Rider — introduced by the students as “our real-life Elle Woods” and “our brilliant director” during curtain call — left the stage and began making their way to the altar on that late summer evening.

“I could not imagine doing this show with anyone else — and, frankly, I could not imagine going through life with anyone else,” Rider says.

The perfect exclamation point on the moment, Geller says, was the cast then breaking into “Omigod You Guys,” the song that backed the main character getting dolled up for a proposal in the musical. Their proposal was captured and shared in a TikTok video.

“Almost a year later, I do not have the words to adequately describe how special it was, and having the kids there to help facilitate it was touching in a way that I still can’t comprehend,” Geller says.

“And they kept a secret; that’s what astounds me,” Rider adds jokingly.

The two discovered theater in different ways. Geller, a Marietta native, alumna of the Cobb County Center for Excellence in the Performing Arts at Pebblebrook High School and University of Cincinnati music graduate, has danced since her toddler years. Meanwhile, Rider stepped into the spotlight as a senior in his native Dahlonega, Georgia, before studying the art at Brenau University.

“We talk all the time about how City Springs has been such a foundational part of our relationship and of finding each other,” Rider says. “Of course, we knew each other before that, but City Springs really brought us back together to rekindle our friendship.”

The City Springs production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder cemented their friendship in 2020. Dating each other soon followed. Unfortunately, the pandemic shutdown halted production. It was a blow for the pair, who have made theater such a central part of their lives.

“I love theater because it can make a difference in somebody’s life,” Rider says. “I always think about that first time that someone sees a play, and they realize it was something they needed, something that could make them go out and live life with more courage . . . It’s the greatest form of communion, and I think that’s why it was so missed during Covid.”

Perhaps feeling that communal loss more profoundly, Geller and Rider began to quarantine together. And while that time proved difficult for some couples, it only deepened their bond.

Rider’s mother was hospital-bound for weeks due to the virus.

“There was a lot going on with me mentally and emotionally, and Arielle was my anchor in those moments,” he says. “One thing that Covid taught us is how we’ll overcome obstacles and how we can be strong with the other person when they feel like they’re at their weakest.”

“It really showed us who we can be for each other,” Geller says.

The couple made it through the worst of the pandemic because of each other, and they plan to take that same unity into everything they do in the production world and in life. They’re off to a strong start, with their last Conservatory competition team sweeping the categories in their debut at the National Performing Arts Festival in Orlando.

Legally Blonde Jr. wasn’t even initially in the plan. It wasn’t on the poll City Springs gives the students to gauge their interests. The theater company usually doesn’t do the mainstage production of the junior musical in the same season, but Geller feels that everything happens for a reason.

The experience reminded them that their advice sticks with their students.

“One thing that we always try to incorporate with how we teach our kids is to make sure that whenever you’re performing or creating, that it’s always coming from the heart — that it’s always for something other than yourself,” Geller says. “And I think with all of them, that manifested itself that night [we got engaged]. They felt like they were truly giving us a gift, the best gift we could have received.”

“They handled it with such care and joy because they knew how much it meant to us,” Rider says.

The couple is now preparing to pilot a junior musical and train the youth competition teams, all as they settle into newlywed life. But they say it won’t take too much adjustment. They look forward to a life of theater together, blending their varied creative approaches to solve problems and indulging in one of their favorite pastimes: working on projects together on the couch.

“I think we’ve both felt like for a long time that we’re already married, you know what I mean?” Geller says. “I think we both have such a heartfelt emotion about this relationship that marriage just brings it all together. We’ve already started building a life together, but this is really gonna be that next chapter.”

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Angela Oliver is a proud native of old Atlanta who grew up in the West End. A Western Kentucky University journalism and Black Studies grad, daily news survivor and member of Delta Sigma Theta, she works in the grassroots nonprofit world while daydreaming about seeing her scripts come alive on the big screen.