At the end of the year, a final dance workshop will determine the three boys and three girls who will be asked to join the company.

The film focuses primarily on star student Maureen, naïve newcomer Jody Sawyer, and smart-aleck Eva Rodriguez, as well as Jonathan Reeves, the company's aging choreographer and director, and Cooper Nielson, the company's star dancer who also wants to choreograph.

For the end of the year workshop, Maureen is given the lead role in the performance directed by Jonathan, while Eva is relegated to the corps.

Cooper choreographs a rock/pop music-based ballet based on his failed relationship with Kathleen and selects Jody to lead, along with dancers Charlie and Erik.

When Erik is injured during the final rehearsal, Cooper decides to dance the role himself, further inflaming the tensions between him, Jody, and Charlie.

Maureen doesn't show up at the workshop performance, and her lead part is given to Eva, who impresses the company and the audience.

In the closing credits, the dancers are seen rehearsing at their respective dance companies while Maureen begins university classes with Jim and finally makes friends.

Broadway performer Priscilla Lopez has a cameo appearance as the jazz instructor at Jody and Cooper's modern dance class.

[7][8] The subplot in which Cooper attracts the financial support of a flirtatious wealthy female philanthropist is mentioned in an August 15, 2004, The New York Times article entitled "How Much Is That Dancer in the Program?

The site's consensus states: "Viewers willing to sit through soapy plot contrivances to see some excellent dancing might enjoy Center Stage; for everyone else, there's still always Fame.

"[11] The New York Times critic A. O. Scott wrote for the film: The script, by Carol Heikkinen, has a lot of business to take care of before the Big Show, which is its mandatory climax, and it steamrolls through its expository scenes with more efficiency than grace, as though in a desperate hurry to reach the next commercial break.

The only solace from such schlock is the fact that the film makes it clear from the start that it exists simply to showcase the dancing itself.

"[15] Eng also wrote that "although the film's ending is a little too neat and happy to be realistic, it does leave you with the feeling of young girls taking charge of their lives.

[5] A sequel to the film titled Center Stage: Turn It Up starring Rachele Brooke Smith was first released in cinemas in Australia on October 30, 2008, and debuted in the United States on November 1, 2008, on the Oxygen channel.