Newsy bits

* It's all over US newspapers, but I can't seem to find it in any local sheets, at least online: former MIAF director Kristy Edmunds has landed a plum job at UCLA as artistic director of its renowned live performance series. As the LA Times puts it, "Her four years as artistic director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival in Australia extended her reputation as an impresario with impressive contacts and a flair for the adventurous and the offbeat." Indeed. She'll be a busy woman: for the first year she'll also be continuing her present job as consulting artistic director for a new performing arts program at New York City's Park Avenue Armory.

* Meanwhile, the Melbourne Theatre Company yesterday announced an interim triumvirate of artistic directors, who will program the 2012 season before soon-to-be-former MIAF AD Brett Sheehy takes up the reins. They are Aidan Fennessy, Robyn Nevin and Pamela Rabe. The 2012 season will be annoounced in September.

* Lastly, get your greedy hands on Robert Reid's new Platform Paper, Hello World! Promoting the Arts on the Web. You don't have to be a performing arts nut to find this fascinating: it's an intelligent and broad look at the impact of digital technology with implications beyond Reid's areas of focus. Available now from Currency House.