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This year’s UCLA Live schedule features “Slava’s Snowshow.”

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This year’s UCLA Live schedule features “Tale of 2 Cities,” a play by Heather W

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This year’s UCLA Live schedule features former Beach Boy Brian Wilson in “A 40th Anni

Los Angeles is a big city. As anyone who lives here knows, Angelenos come from all walks of life and have a wide range of interests. In a city this large, it appears almost impossible to pique the curiosity of every resident.

UCLA Live’s 2006-2007 season, however, emerges fully capable of taking on such a challenge as the program matches the city of Los Angeles in its own eclecticism.

“UCLA Live is one of the really unique things about the university in terms of the arts. Its diversity and the range of material it presents are unlike any other performing arts programs,” said Chris Waterman, dean of the School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA. “Our program includes not only performers who are already touring around the country at universities, but also a lot of new and very innovative work.”

UCLA Live is making no exception this year, boasting a remarkable lineup in theater, music, dance and spoken word. A returning highlight of the season is the International Theater Festival, which will run for its fifth year. The festival offers a unique combination of seasoned performances and is also premiering works from around the world.

“I think the secret to the festival’s success is that it’s always excellent for one thing, it’s always interesting, and it really is a great mix of your classical and then your experimental (theater),” said Karen Nelson, UCLA Live’s senior publicist.

The festival opens on Sept. 29 with the L.A. premiere of “The Peony Pavilion,” an ancient Chinese opera trilogy adapted by Kenneth Pai.

The following day introduces a more modern subject with the world premiere of Heather Woodbury’s play “Tale of 2Cities.” “Tale,” which will run from Sept. 30 to Oct. 8, revolves around the Brooklyn Dodgers’ 1957 move from New York to Los Angeles. The play explores the cultural impact the move had on the community and its people. Woodbury found the displacement resulting from the baseball team’s move as her inspiration for the work, as areas in Los Angeles once frequented and beloved soon became unrecognizable.

“In order to build the stadium, Los Angeles’ topography was drastically changed,” Woodbury said. “They literally had to raze to the ground one of the highest hills in Los Angeles.”

According to Woodbury, the themes in “Tale” are still relevant today.

“All of these themes seemed to me not only to be interesting from a historical perspective, but also a very contemporary perspective of seeing things so drastically altered that you can’t even have a memory of it,” she said.

The play does not just center around the baseball team. A unique set of characters, beginning with a young DJ who spins a mix after his grandmother passes away, figure at the play’s core.

“You don’t have to have a background with the Dodgers to be interested in the play,” Woodbury said. “It’s about having condos built over our favorite old store as much as it’s about the Dodgers.”

Another anticipated festival event is the L.A. premiere of “Slava’s Snowshow,” which will bring snow to the city this winter as the Russian clown Slava Polunin performs his renowned act at Royce Hall.

“It’s this amazing combination of clowning, miming and theater. Every performance includes a huge snowstorm with snow literally flying past your face,” Nelson said.

The UCLA Live program remains at the forefront musically. The Roots Music Series will feature “Poetry Said, Poetry Sung,” a rare collaboration of Lucinda Williams and her father, poet Miller Williams, on Nov. 30.

The Artists Without Limits Series is proud to showcase former Beach Boy Brian Wilson’s “40th Anniversary Tribute to Pet Sounds” on Nov. 1, a concert devoted to what’s largely considered one of the greatest albums of all time.

This season music fans can also expect a wide array of world music artists hailing from Brazil, Morocco, Burundi, Tibet, Israel, Japan, Iran and Mexico.

A highlight of the season for dance comes in May with the pairing of Royal Ballet dancer Sylvie Guillem and dancer/choreographer Akram Khan, who will blend ballet and classical Indian Kathak dance in their work “Sacred Monsters.”

In “An Evening with Garry Trudeau,” part of the Spoken Word Series, the acclaimed “Doonesbury” creator and cartoonist visits Royce Hall on Oct. 25.

Although the UCLA Live season offers a number of big names, Nelson stresses the benefits of checking out all of the artists appearing.

“I think that is one of the greatest things that UCLA Live does – it presents such a mix of things that it entices you to take a chance on artists that you may not know already,” Nelson said.

For his part, Waterman agrees.

“There’s nothing like seeing a live performance and being in the room with these incredible and talented human beings doing something in real time,” he said. “Just the sheer range of the program is really amazing. UCLA Live is just a great place to get your consciousness expanded.”