The ImprovBoston comedy theater has begun a search for a full-time artistic director, said Mat Gagne, chairman of the board of directors at the 30-year-old institution.

The deadline to apply is July 31; all that’s needed at this stage of the search is a cover letter and resume to [email protected], according to Carrie Gorn, a publicist with ImprovBoston.

“This is an exciting time for ImprovBoston,” Gagne said. “Hiring a full-time artistic director will be an organizational milestone. It renews our dedication to the unique collaborative process of improvisation and the art of comedy. It emphasizes our commitment to the entire ImprovBoston community, our audiences, comedy school students and our performing artists.”

He recounted the theater’s humble beginnings as a traveling troupe of volunteers to “our rise as a nationally recognized comedy theater at our Inman Square location, to our current Central Square complex,” and ran through what the hire would do for ImprovBoston, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit:

The artistic director is responsible for implementing the artistic vision of the theater and comedy school at ImprovBoston and for major decisions affecting the professional development of artistic staff — technicians, musicians, directors, performers and faculty as well as comedy school students — and would develop artistic quality control procedures for weekly shows, oversee direction of weekly shows, auditions, festivals, special events and the touring company. In this position, the person hired would maintain the established comedy school curriculum but create standard procedure for curriculum updates.

The new hire would manage relationships with nationally recognized comedy instructors and schedule comedy school master classes; work with Managing Director Zach Ward on marketing; and be charged with expanding the awareness of the theater locally by creating artistic partnerships and outreach opportunities. This person would be expected to oversee IB festival shows, which would expand awareness nationally and internationally.

ImprovBoston has a part-time artistic director in longtime member Will Luera, who has been with the theater since 1997, although he left in 1999 to start his own improvisational theater company, Blue Screen, and returned in 2000 — also in the role of artistic director.

This post took significant amounts of material from a press release.