1. SECTION HOME.



2. TO THE COMMUNITY.
   
   
3. A DREAM COME TRUE.
   A history of how the center came to be.



4. IMPORTANT DATES.
   A timeline of the center.



5. FOR THE CHILDREN.
   Center will allow all ages to experience the arts.



6. THE PLACE TO BE.
   Expect more than performances at the center.



7. HOMEGROWN.
   The center will be home to four resident companies.



8. LET THE PARTY BEGIN.
   Art & Wine Festival kicks off events.



9. CURTAINS UP.
   A calendar of events for the coming year.



10. A STORIED HISTORY.
    The arts have long been a part of community.



11. THE PRICE TAG.
    How the center has been funded.



12. MAKING IT HAPPEN.
    The board of directors, board of trustees, donors, contractors and design team.

For The Children

For Eric Buck Townsend, the maestro of Townsend Opera Players, his moment of truth came when he was 13. "I look back on a day in the seventh grade," recalled Townsend. "It was a field trip and they took us to 'The Red Shoes' with Norma Shearer. It turned my life around."

While his classmates left, Townsend stayed for two, maybe three, screenings. "My mom called the police and the police found me. They pulled me out of the theater and dragged me home."

But what Townsend had seen would change his life. "It was ballet and it gave me a view of lyricism and romanticism," he recalled. "It made life poetic and instilled a deep desire to be part of it."

That magic moment for Townsend is the holy grail that many arts enthusiasts and teachers are seeking for their students.

They hope fervently that courting children is part of the primary task for the Gallo Center for the Arts.

"It is the most important part of a civic arts program," said Lesley Larson, ballet mistress at Central West Ballet, one of four resident companies at the Gallo center. A resident company joins forces and resources with the center to reach and serve the community.

Larson added that productions at the arts center "might soon be the only opportunity for many students to hear music and see dance and hear opera." That is especially true, she noted, with arts being cut at schools.

Larson said you could not overstate the importance of the children to any arts center or endeavor. "Young people are both future performers and future patrons. The arts change lives." In 1978, when she was 12, it happened to her.

"It was at a local high school in Medford (Oregon). Medford was small, just like Modesto High, and a ballet company came in and put on 'Nutcracker.'

"I went and had never seen anything like it. I was captivated." And ballet became her passion.

Modesto Performing Arts, which produces annual musicals under director Paul Tischer, is not one of Gallo's resident companies. But like Townsend and Larson, Tischer's path was determined by a life-changing event when he was 11 or 12 years old.

That was when "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" captured his imagination. Until then, Tischer had "no interest in theater and I hated musicals."

The movie changed all that, and he has seen the musical more than 20 times since. And musical theater became his life's work.

Tischer has specific notions about what works and what doesn't for young audiences.

"The whole performance ... has to be geared toward the young," insisted Tischer. "It's not enough to abbreviate adult performances. You have to aim everything right at the children. Then they will 'get' it and maybe they will also be hooked for life."

John Turchon, customer-services director at Gallo Center for the Arts, said the local arts leaders and advocates are preaching to the choir. He's already a convert.

To facilitate programs for children, Turchon said the Gallo center has taken a multifaceted approach.

Plus, many of the national and international productions will feature lectures and demonstrations before presentations, as well as question-and-answer sessions afterward.

That also goes for many resident company performances, like the symphony, ballet and opera.

Turchon said local nonprofit companies also will be given a rent reduction for children's performances.

Then he outlined a list of bookings aimed directly at families and youth:

• Del Monte Family Series, featuring "It's Magic!" and the Moscow Circus
• CTC Family Theater, with productions of "The Elves and the Shoemaker," "Peter Rabbit and Friends" and "The Cay"
• Reflections of China, with "Shaolin Warriors," "Jigu, Thunder Drums of China" and Lily Cai Chinese Dance Company
• Central West Ballet's "Nutcracker" and "Cinderella"
• The Modesto Symphony's Symphonic Spooktacular, Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham and Holiday Pops
• Vienna Choir Boys
• Grand Funk Spectacular, part of the Sizzlin' Dance series, traces the history of hip-hop dancing.

Turchon said he believes everyone will find the programs for the young both accessible, reasonably priced and rewarding. He said the Gallo center knows the future is children and their dreams.

"What was a dream is now reality," he said. "Kids should be dreaming."

And some of those kids have caught the dream already.

Melanie Gerling, 17, and a Modesto High student, pronounced her verdict on the Gallo center at a recent Central West Ballet rehearsal at Juline School of Dance.

"Amazing," Gerling said about her recent Gallo Center tour. "When I dance on that stage, it will be as if my dream of being a professional dancer was already coming true in part."

A dance class colleague, Joseph Adkins, 17, also of Modesto High, said dancing at the new theater will be a thrill. But he won't imagine he's in Paris or New York City.

"It's a better venue for more people, but this proves you don't have to go to a great big city to have great arts," said Adkins. "We're going to have great arts and ballet in Modesto. That's a great feeling."