When dancers wriggle in their lavender leotards or stagger across the Royce Hall stage, the famous theater can be a chaotic place.
But the UCLA Live office has immaculate white walls and black leather couches, and this fall, the performing arts organization has a new executive and artistic director.
Kristy Edmunds has moved into the basement suite of Royce Hall at a pivotal moment.
Christopher Waterman, dean of the School of Arts and Architecture, explained that while arts companies often operate on thin financial margins, UCLA Live, like many of its peers, is having money troubles.
They’ve also experienced some dramatic shifts in personnel.
Edmunds is UCLA Live’s first permanent director since the 2009-2010 season, when David Sefton reportedly resigned because his theater programming was too expensive.
Waterman said that last year, when he served as interim director, was a time of transition. UCLA Live evaluated its strengths and weaknesses, he said, and put out applications for a new head. More than 80 people responded.
A committee that included professors, UCLA museum officials, and last year’s president for the Student Committee for the Arts chose Edmunds, who was living in Australia and consulting for an arts organization in New York.
“Whatever stress there may have been was completely washed away,” Waterman said of the months before Edmunds was selected.
Edmunds could just possibly wash away anyone she spoke with. She has a sweet smile, but also a tough demeanor.
“Aesthetic experience can grab us by the throat and shake us around,” she said at a recent town hall meeting that introduced her as the new director.
She’s been pursuing that hold for years, originally creating her own art in film and other formats before moving into administration in an attempt to open up more opportunities for artists.
“I continue to make work, but more for myself,” she said. “The institution has become my medium.”
According to Edmunds, her institutional role is to transition work from the doodle on the napkin all the way to the Royce Hall or Freud Playhouse stage. She said she is also interested in presenting work outside of the usual UCLA Live venues, perhaps at the Los Angeles Tennis Center or on a grassy knoll somewhere on campus.
Anyone in Edmunds’ position would have to focus on money, but the sputtering national economy has led to depressed ticket sales and flagging donations for UCLA Live, said Jessica Wolf, senior publicist for the organization.
“One of Kristy’s jobs, and a gauge of how successful she is, will be how much money she can raise,” said Mark Swed, music critic for the Los Angeles Times.
Edmunds must compete with other high-profile Los Angeles arts organizations for the pockets of donors. An important way to do that, Swed said, is to maintain UCLA Live’s reputation as a presenter of cutting-edge work.
Swed said he thinks that the organization’s prestige has fallen since Edmunds’ predecessor left. Without a permanent director, there has been no one to define the organization’s direction.
“It doesn’t have any kind of an artistic profile, really,” Swed said.
Sefton’s International Theatre Festival was renowned for daring productions. Swed said he would like to see the same spirit return to UCLA.
“You have to create that sense of excitement where people will come … not just to see the same old people that travel through year in and year out, middlebrow writers giving their little talks,” he said. “You have to challenge people and get them excited about being challenged.”
He points to the risks of programming an ambitious arts season. Edmunds needs to raise ticket sales, but audiences might be discouraged by complicated acts.
Edmunds said that with a little contextualization, complex work is no problem.
“I think audiences can handle abstractions,” she said. “I think they can handle expressive truths.”