After twenty years at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre Company, Edith Love, who rose from a position in the costume shop to managing director, is leaving the company at the end of the 1996-97 season.

"The theatre is at a crossroads and so am I," Love wrote in her resignation letter. "The Alliance is debt-free and better positioned both financially and artistically than ever before in its 27-year history. I've been working or volunteering here since I was 24, and the time has come for me to look forward to my next twenty years in the art."

Love will work with the Board of Directors on finding a successor, while, in the interim, board member Debbie Shelton will act as liaison between the board and the staff.

During Love's tenure, the theatre produced such works as Driving Miss Daisy, Angels In America and the Broadway-bound Last Night Of Ballyhoo. The Alliance now has an annual budget of $8.5 million and attendance of over 350,000 each season, making it "one of the largest non-profit theatres in the U.S. Not only is the company in the black (including a cash reserve of half a million), Alliance recieved $1,000,000 from the National Endowment For The Arts by meeting the terms of a 1993 "challenge grant" to wipe out accumulated debt.

According to the Alliance publicity office, Love has announced no immediate plans following her exit from Alliance. -- By David Lefkowitz