MIDDLETOWN, CONN.- Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts has appointed Laura Paul as Interim Director starting today, Monday, February 1, 2016. She will work alongside current Director Pamela Tatge through Friday, April 1, 2016 and then will remain in the position until a successor is identified and begins work. Laura Paul comes to Wesleyan with three decades of experience in nonprofit arts management. Most recently, she was Chief Operating Officer of the Boston-based New England Foundation for the Arts, where she was a member of the senior leadership team from 2001 to 2015. Previously she served as Managing Director of the Colorado Dance Festival, and Concert Dance Company of Boston. She holds an A.B. from Vassar College, and an M.B.A. from the School of Management of Simmons College.

Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts exists to catalyze people’s creativity by engaging them in the dynamic work of diverse artists.

Three inter-related activities enable the CFA to realize its purpose:

• supporting the research, public productions, and in-studio teaching needs of the departments of Art and Art History, Dance, Music, and Theater;

• leading inter-disciplinary collaborations and other initiatives that integrate artists into creative curricular and co-curricular initiatives; and

• organizing powerful encounters between visiting artists and diverse elements of the Wesleyan community, the greater Middletown community, statewide, and regional audiences.

The Center for the Arts opened in the fall of 1973, and includes the 400-seat Theater, the 260-seat Ring Family Performing Arts Hall (former CFA Hall), the World Music Hall (a non-Western performance space), the 400-seat Crowell Concert Hall, the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, and classrooms and studios.