COMMUNITY INPUT SESSIONS – PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR FINALISTS

6.11.26

Dear Live Arts community,

As many of you know, Live Arts is in the final stage of our search for our next Producing Artistic Director (PAD), and your voice matters in this decision. We’re hosting three community input sessions, one for each of our finalists, and we’d love to see you there.

Each session will run from 5:30 to 7:00 PM in the Founders Theater, (3rd floor, 123 E. Water St.). Come ready to meet the candidate, ask questions, and share what you’d hope to see from Live Arts’ next chapter.

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Tuesday, June 16: Adrienne Oliver

Adrienne Jacobson Oliver is a Charlottesville-based artist, educator, and theater leader whose relationship with Live Arts spans three decades, during which she has contributed as an actor, producer, director, board member, volunteer, educator, parent, and artistic leader. She served as the inaugural Director of New Works, where she curated and led Live Arts’ NEA-awarded WATERWORKS Festival, a multiyear initiative focused on community engagement, artistic innovation, and the presentation of new plays.

Professionally, Adrienne’s work bridges the arts, education, and nonprofit sectors. For the past decade, she has served the Charlottesville community as a literacy specialist and instructional coach, and is a nationally recognized interdisciplinary artist, writer, and scholar. She trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her leadership centers on building dynamic programs, cultivating meaningful relationships, and creating structures that allow diverse communities to thrive. Her interests include artistic programming, organizational development, education, and the role of theater as a civic and cultural force.

Adrienne is passionate about the future of Live Arts and the possibilities of volunteer-powered theater to foster belonging, creativity, dialogue, and transformation.

Thursday, June 18: Leslie M. Scott-Jones

Leslie is a Charlottesville-based theater artist, educator, and director whose work in the local theater community spans decades. She most recently directed Live Arts’ production of BLOOD AT THE ROOT, and previously served as Artistic Director of the Charlottesville Players Guild, where she produced all ten plays of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle, a landmark achievement in the local theater scene.

Beyond directing, Leslie has built leadership experience across the arts, education, and nonprofit sectors in Charlottesville and beyond. Her career has spanned artistic direction, drama education, fundraising, and operations, with budget responsibilities ranging from small community productions to multimillion-dollar institutional portfolios. She is currently pursuing graduate studies that further deepen her leadership and program development practice.

Leslie approaches leadership as community building, with a focus on relationships, mutual respect, and creating conditions for both volunteers and paid staff to do their best work. Her interests include community-rooted programming, development grounded in personal connection, and expanding the reach of Live Arts into the communities it has historically served and the ones it is still working to invite in.

Thursday, July 16: Matthew Reynolds

Matthew is a theater director, educator, and equity consultant based in Medford, Oregon, whose connection to Live Arts spans nearly a decade and includes three summers as a member of the Live Arts Fringe Tech Team. Their ties to the organization date to 2018. That same year, they received an Honorable Mention for the Tony Award for Excellence in Theatre Education, recognizing their work building inclusive, ambitious theater programs that center student voice.

Across their career, Matthew has raised significant funding to bring students to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe multiple times, creating original, student-developed productions. They have partnered with WorldStrides and the American High School Theatre Festival on a program offering college credit to high schoolers, and co-founded the Lotus Rising Project, a nonprofit supporting LGBTQIA+ youth. They also run Matthew Reynolds Consulting, a practice focused on equity, diversity, and inclusion in the arts and other sectors.

Matthew’s leadership philosophy centers on “power with” rather than “power over”: collaborative, transparent, and grounded in dignity, mutual respect, and the development of every person on the team. Their interests include community-driven programming, equity-rooted artistic practice, and building creative environments where people can take meaningful risks together.

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All three sessions are free and open to the public; no RSVP is required.

If you can’t attend in person and would like to share thoughts directly with the search committee, please reach out to me, Ckalib Nelson, at [email protected].

Thanks to the work of Shannon Montague, a Zoom option will now be available for each session. If you can’t make it in person, you’re welcome to join us online instead.!

Here are the Zoom links, and once each session is over I can share the recording link.

Adrienne Oliver (6/16): https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87190349891?pwd=Lu0Ve5yZPfK3bSLzTgtajFNbzZwnoX.1

Leslie Scott-Jones (6/18): https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85299785274?pwd=Yak7EgbpJufaaHmcrrklElHhN3cP8I.1

Matthew Reynolds (7/16): https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82170868904?pwd=43lFWDMa5znZUb1gqHdw7xaaMroJX8.1

Protocol: folks should join the Zoom waiting room– and make sure their audio is turned off. They are welcome to have their cameras on if they’d like. They should have muted audio though as not to distrupt the session. They should remember that the session is recorded so anything they do on screen will be recorded! If they have a question for the candidate, I’ll be monitoring the chat.”

We hope to hear from as many of you as possible, whether you join us in the Founders or from home.

Thank you for being part of this. Live Arts wouldn’t be Live Arts without you.

Sincerely,

Ckalib Nelson

Vice President of the Live Arts Board of Directors and PAD Hiring Committee Chair on behalf of the Search Committee