CYT is committed to providing a safe and nurturing environment for every student. As part of a national organization, CYT branches are supported by an independent board of directors and a comprehensive safety system called The Safety Scene. This program provides training, policies, and resources to help prevent, recognize, and respond to physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse.

Safety at CYT goes beyond background checks. All staff and volunteers receive ongoing training and are held to consistent national standards, ensuring families can trust that safety is always a top priority.

Eric Briarley Grundy - Executive Director & Co-Founder, CYT Mystic
Eric Briarley Grundy is a professional actor, entrepreneur, community leader, and passionate advocate for the transformative power of the arts. As Executive Director and Co-Founder of CYT Mystic, Eric brings together more than two decades of professional theatre experience with a lifelong commitment to leadership, creativity, service, and building community.

A member of Actors’ Equity Association, Eric’s professional career has taken him from Broadway national tours to regional theatres and stages around the world. His credits include Les Misérables on the Broadway National Tour, My Fair Lady on the American National Tour, Gone With the Wind as Rhett Butler on its Chinese National Tour, Mamma Mia! as Sam Carmichael with Royal Caribbean, and productions at Goodspeed Opera House including South Pacific and A Little Night Music to name a few. He earned his BFA in Theatre from The Hartt School at the University of Hartford and graduated magna cum laude. 

Beyond the stage, Eric has consistently looked for ways to use creativity as a vehicle for serving others. He co-founded Eli Draws, a creative initiative inspired by his son’s artwork that encouraged children and adults to explore their imaginations through art, play, books, and performing-arts programming. He also founded DoYouHaveOneDollar . org, a 40 day grassroots campaign created to help the homeless, poor, and hungry of New York City. Working in partnership with The Bowery Mission, Eric led the campaign’s strategic planning, fundraising, partnerships, and public outreach, ultimately raising more than $22,000 on a $1,000 budget. 

Those experiences have reinforced a philosophy that has guided Eric throughout his career: the best theatre is built through collaboration, and the arts can do far more than entertain—they can inspire people, strengthen relationships, and mobilize communities. His own artist mission has long included using each project as an opportunity to serve his colleagues and community.
 
That philosophy now finds its fullest expression in CYT Mystic. As Executive Director, Eric is committed to helping build an organization where young people can develop their gifts, discover their identity in Christ, experience the joy and discipline of exceptional theatre arts, and learn that who they become matters even more than the role they play.

Together with his wife and CYT Mystic Co-Founder, Amanda, Eric is helping establish a Christ-centered theatre community dedicated to developing young people of character, strengthening families, and serving southeastern Connecticut—building character on and off the stage.

Amanda Grundy - Artistic Director & Co-Founder, CYT Mystic
Amanda Grundy is an accomplished theatre educator, director, choreographer, performer, and teaching artist whose career has been dedicated to helping young people discover confidence, creativity, and community through the performing arts. As Artistic Director and Co-Founder of CYT Mystic, Amanda brings extensive experience in theatre education and professional theatre to the artistic vision of the organization.

Amanda currently serves as a Performing Arts Teacher at ISAAC Middle School in New London, Connecticut, where she develops and teaches theatre and dance curriculum and leads Broadway at ISAAC, the school’s after-school musical theatre program. She also collaborates with organizations including Goodspeed Opera House and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center to provide professional arts opportunities for her students. In recognition of her work as an educator, Amanda was named ISAAC Teacher of the Year for 2022–2023. 

Before moving with her family to Connecticut, Amanda spent many years working in theatre and arts education in New York City. From 2012–2020, Amanda served as a Teaching Artist with Disney Theatrical Group’s Education & Audience Engagement department in New York City. Through Disney Musicals in Schools, she worked alongside teachers, paraprofessionals, and speech and occupational therapists to establish sustainable and inclusive musical theatre programs in underserved NYC public elementary schools, using modeling, co-teaching, and coaching to equip educators to continue the work independently. Amanda directed, choreographed, and music directed Disney KIDS productions including The Lion King, Aladdin, The Jungle Book, and 101 Dalmatians, and facilitated professional development for educators at Disney Musicals in Schools regional sites. Her work with Disney also included developing and adapting curriculum, leading Disney on Broadway workshops for participants of all ages, teaching music and choreography from productions including Frozen, Aladdin, The Lion King, Newsies, and Mary Poppins, and serving as an Assistant Choreographer during the development of Disney’s Finding Nemo KIDS. Throughout her eight years with Disney, Amanda’s work centered on using musical theatre to cultivate student engagement, inclusion, confidence, and empowerment.

Her teaching career has reached students from preschool through high school and has included work with Hunter College Elementary School, American Ballet Theatre’s Educational Outreach Program, The Town Hall, Covenant House, Sundog Theatre Company, and the Wagner College Summer Music Theatre Institute. At Covenant House, Amanda co-developed a theatre program for homeless youth that culminated in a 24-hour play festival and collaborated with Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning guest artists to create engaging experiences for students with a variety of learning needs. 

Amanda also brings a unique understanding of the professional child performer. For ten years, she worked as a child actor guardian on Broadway and national touring productions including Billy Elliot the Musical, Annie, Evita, and Les Misérables. Her responsibilities extended well beyond backstage supervision: she worked closely with parents, stage management and company management, supervised teams of child guardians, and helped ensure that performing professionally remained a positive experience for young actors. 

Before focusing primarily on education, Amanda enjoyed a 15-year career as a professional musical theatre performer. Her experience ranged from the European Tour of 42nd Street to New York City Opera and regional theatre, and she has worked professionally as an actress, singer, dancer, choreographer, and voice-over artist. 

Amanda holds a Master of Science in Educational Theatre from The City College of New York and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre from East Carolina University. 

At the heart of Amanda’s work is a belief that excellent theatre education should do more than create excellent productions—it should empower every participant. Her artistic mission has been to involve the school community, engage the surrounding community, and create inclusive experiences in which students with different abilities and learning styles can thrive. 

At CYT Mystic, Amanda brings those experiences together to create a Christ-centered artistic environment where young people are challenged to grow as performers while developing confidence, collaboration, compassion, and character. Together with her husband and CYT Mystic Co-Founder Eric, she is helping build a theatre community where every young person can know that their value extends far beyond the spotlight—and where excellence in the arts becomes a means of serving one another and glorifying God.
 

C. David Stearns - Chief Operating Director & Treasurer
C. David Stearns is an accomplished business executive and strategic leader with more than two decades of experience building organizations, developing high-performing teams, managing complex operations, and driving sustainable growth. As Chief Operating Director and Treasurer of CYT Mystic, David brings extensive expertise in organizational leadership, financial management, strategic planning, and operational development to help transform CYT Mystic’s vision into a strong and sustainable organization.

Throughout his career, David has held senior leadership positions spanning operations, sales, marketing, business development, and executive management. His expertise includes P&L accountability, budgeting and forecasting, operational excellence, contract negotiation, strategic planning, KPI development, market expansion, and data-driven decision-making. At the center of his leadership philosophy is the ability to connect strategy with execution—building the people, processes, and infrastructure necessary for organizations to grow responsibly and successfully. 

Most recently, David served as Regional Vice President for DuraServ, where he developed and implemented regional strategies across sales and operations, established performance metrics, managed budgets and financial forecasts, and evaluated financial results to improve productivity and resource allocation. Under his leadership, the region consistently exceeded ambitious annual sales targets, growing from $42 million in his first year to $135 million in his fourth, while achieving the company’s #1 regional ranking in year-over-year growth across key performance measures. David also invested heavily in developing people, helping advance numerous team members into senior management and leadership positions. 

Previously, David served in executive and senior leadership roles with Farmer Focus, Maple Leaf Farms, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, Pier Fish Co., and Horizon Foods Company. Across these organizations, he led market expansion, launched new products and distribution divisions, developed strategic partnerships, managed sales and operational teams, negotiated major customer relationships, built marketing initiatives, and helped organizations identify and capitalize on new opportunities for growth. 

David’s drive for excellence was shaped long before his career in executive leadership. Earlier in his life, he competed as a semi-professional baseball player with the Malden A’s, and 15 years later, he returned to another passion from his youth—bowling—and went on to compete professionally on the PBA Tour in the Northeast. Competing at a high level in two different sports helped shape the discipline and perseverance David carries into his professional life today: a commitment to never quit, to continually pursue excellence, to accomplish the mission at hand, and to see established goals through to completion.

Leadership development has also been a consistent thread throughout David’s career. He has designed and delivered sales training programs, mentored managers and sales professionals, developed nationwide training curricula, and built high-performing teams. Early in his management career, he was recognized as the #1 trainer across 33 locations and later served as a corporate sales trainer, experiences that helped shape his commitment to developing people alongside developing organizations. 

At CYT Mystic, David applies that experience to something measured by more than a bottom line. As Chief Operating Director and Treasurer, he helps provide the operational structure, financial stewardship, strategic planning, and organizational discipline necessary to support CYT Mystic’s mission for the long term. Working alongside Executive Director Eric Briarley Grundy, Artistic Director Amanda Grundy, the Board of Directors, and the broader CYT Mystic community, David is helping build an organization capable of serving young people and families with both excellence and integrity.

His leadership helps ensure that the creative and ministry vision of CYT Mystic is supported by a strong organizational foundation—so that as CYT Mystic grows, it can remain focused on what matters most: developing Christ-centered young people of character, strengthening families, and transforming the community through exceptional theatre arts.

Pamela Stearns - Finance Coordinator, CYT Mystic
Pamela Stearns brings more than two decades of experience in bookkeeping, administration, retail leadership, and customer service to her role as Finance Coordinator for CYT Mystic. With a professional background that combines hands-on financial management with years of service in church and school environments, Pamela brings both practical experience and a strong understanding of responsible stewardship to CYT Mystic’s financial operations.

Pamela spent more than 11 years serving in bookkeeping and administrative positions with Saint Kevin Church & School in Warwick, Rhode Island, and St. Eugene Church in Chepachet, Rhode Island. During that time, she managed a wide range of financial responsibilities, including accounts payable and receivable, monthly account reconciliations, vendor billing, budgeting, payroll and 1099 processing, tuition collection, financial recordkeeping, and the preparation of financial reports for parish leadership and the Diocese of Providence. She also utilized QuickBooks to maintain accurate financial records and support the day-to-day financial operations of the organizations she served.

Her responsibilities extended well beyond bookkeeping. Pamela maintained employee, vendor, parish, and student records; managed parish registrations and census information; coordinated ministry schedules; prepared church communications; and designed materials for parish activities and events. These experiences strengthened her ability to manage details carefully while supporting the larger needs of an active, community-centered organization.

Pamela also brings extensive experience in retail, sales, and team leadership. Since 2021, she has served as a Prestige Beauty Team Leader with Macy’s, overseeing multiple prestige beauty brands and working in a fast-paced environment requiring organization, accountability, communication, relationship-building, and attention to detail. Her broader career has included positions in merchandising, cosmetology, skincare, and specialty retail, giving her a diverse professional background centered on serving people and working effectively as part of a team.

As Finance Coordinator for CYT Mystic, Pamela draws upon her financial and administrative experience to help maintain accurate records, support sound financial processes, and provide the careful organization necessary for responsible stewardship of the resources entrusted to CYT Mystic.

Working alongside CYT Mystic’s Treasurer, leadership team, and Board of Directors, Pamela helps ensure that the organization’s financial practices support its mission and continued growth. Her work behind the scenes provides an important part of the foundation that allows CYT Mystic to remain focused on its larger purpose: developing Christ-centered young people of character through exceptional theatre arts and serving young people, families, and the community with excellence and integrity.