Woodstock's Elm Street Cultural Arts Village Names Executive Director

From Elm Street Cultural Arts Village:

At their meeting on May 17th, 2016, the Elm Street Board of Directors moved to name Christopher Brazelton as the organization’s first Executive Director. Brazelton has been serving as Elm Street’s Operations Director for the last four years. Asked about the significance of this change in status, Board President, Shawn McLeod said “Our organization is growing in size, complexity and in service to the community. Creating the position of Executive Director recognizes this growth and extends additional authority to Christopher so that the work of Elm Street can continue to grow smoothly. Much of the growth we’ve experienced is due to Christopher’s leadership of the Board and Staff. That, combined with his deep engagement in the city of Woodstock, made him the natural choice to fill this position.”

Under Brazelton’s leadership over the past two years, Elm Street has grown in numerous ways to increase the organization’s engagement to the community. The staff has grown from 1.5 people to 5 staff members, including an Education Manager, a Production Manager, and a Community Engagement Coordinator. Additionally, the volunteer corps (Elm Street Visionaries) has grown from ~15 to over 60 (“and growing” Brazelton adds).

Elm Street Cultural Arts Village annually produces 25+ stage productions. The new 16-17 Season (including all sorts of new programming) will boast over 130 individual events to continue creating vibrancy for the community. A wide variety of arts classes and camps, enchanting over 10,000 students in our school system are also planned. Additionally, the organization has just dedicated an outdoor sculpture garden and is in the process of building a new art gallery, studio and education space, culinary garden and gathering place on the site of the historic Reeves House.

Christopher Brazelton graduated from Florida State University in 2011 with a BA degree in Theatre Management. Prior to working at Elm Street, he served as Executive Director of Leave Your Mark Productions in Tallahassee, Florida, where he developed new programming and quadrupling the ticket revenue and volunteer base over a period of four years.

“It is incredibly humbling being offered this position. What makes it thrilling is being a part of such a fantastic community. We’ve all worked hard and we are looking forward to seeing more growth. About 2 years ago we made the decision to focus our efforts on creating vibrancy for the wide variety of community that we have. The focus mainly being on 2 things: people and partners (other organizations). We will continue to make this our focus to live up to our mission of engaging the community.” Brazelton says.

Christopher and his wife, Morgan, live in Woodstock with their new puppy Tally, an Australian Shepard.

Photo courtesy of Elm Street Cultural Arts Village.