Live Arts, Inc.

ABOUT LIVE ARTS 

Founded in 1990, Live Arts is a national model for engaged community theater. For the last three decades, we have dedicated ourselves to the mission of “forging theater and community.” Our engagement in the community runs deep, and the quality of our volunteer-staged productions is high.

Facilities

We are the anchor tenant in a four-story performance space in the heart of downtown Charlottesville and attract participants, students, and audiences from across Central Virginia. We also rent auxiliary rehearsal space at the neighboring Vault Virginia. 

Programming 

In a typical year, we present a compelling season of mainstage plays and musicals produced by more than 1,200 volunteers. We welcome hundreds of people to our year-round education workshops and youth summer camps. We run a lab that helps local playwrights develop their work. And for more than two decades, we have provided tech support to high school and college theater companies performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We believe that theater can be a platform for social change and a way to explore the pressing issues of our time. That belief, put forth by our founders, has inspired us to commit to dismantling systems, policies, and practices that may have perpetuated patterns of injustice at Live Arts. In fall 2020, we formed a 13-member DEI Strategy Team to help us become a more welcoming, inclusive theater. Our initial action steps are summarized here.

Live Arts is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against any individual based on any non-merit factor. We are committed to an equitable workplace where everyone is treated as a respected and valued member of the team. We actively seek to build and retain a diverse staff with regard to race, culture, ethnicity, class, religion, physical ability, age, gender, and sexual orientation. 

As an organization working to advance equity, we are committed to elevating the voices of people of color, Native people, LGBTQ+ and transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary people; and people with disabilities. We encourage people from these communities to apply.