Alumna named the new dean of the Ira Brind School of Theater Arts at the University of the Arts
An alumna of the Department of Theatre Arts has been named the new dean of the Ira Brind School of Theater Arts at the University of the Arts.
Kym Moore ’81 (Theatre Arts) has worked for Brown University for more than 10 years as a professor and director of undergraduate studies at the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance. She will begin as dean of the Ira Brind School of Theater Arts in January 2021.
According to a prepared statement from the University of the Arts, Moore has received multiple awards as a director and producer, including two Dorry Awards for best direction and production of a play. As co-founder and co-artistic director of the Antigravity Performance Project, Moore and her collaborators “challenge the boundaries of theatrical convention and forge new frontiers in performance-making.” She and Antigravity colleagues recently completed their second residency with the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media as part of their creation of “Do Eye Know You?”, with plans to premiere the transmedia performance installation next season in Philadelphia.
“The thought of working collaboratively across disciplines to ‘advance human creativity’ is beyond my wildest expectations,” said Moore in a prepared statement. “Centering the arts as a primary contributor to the development of society has been my mission as an artist and educator from the very start. To find an institution filled with faculty, students, staff and administrators that share the mission is surely a dream come true. I’m thrilled to be coming ‘home’ to a place I didn’t know existed beyond that dream state.”
Moore has taught acting and directing at a slew of prestigious institutions including the Juilliard School, Sarah Lawrence College, Notre Dame University and Carnegie Mellon University, among many others. After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree at SUNY New Paltz, she went on to earn her Master of Fine Arts Degree at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
“We set out to find a truly imaginative and future-focused leader who gets the relevance of art and creativity today, and how it can change our world,” says University of the Arts (UArts) President and CEO David Yager. “In Kym we have found that leader, and she also defies the boundaries between disciplines. She understands what creatives bring to our society and knows how we must prepare—the work we must lead—to be relevant and reflective of the world we live in. To say we are pleased to welcome Kym to UArts is a great understatement. I can say with confidence, and together with the Office of the Provost and the entire search committee, from her very first on-campus visit back in March, we all feel as though we are welcoming Kym home.”