Slate of stars in store for Gallo Center audiences

Putting together a new season of shows at the Gallo Center for the Arts is all about knowing what the audience wants.

And they’re pretty confident with the 2015-16 season that audiences will want to see the gamut of lauded stars, Broadway shows, acclaimed comedians and others who are set to perform on the downtown Modesto venue’s two stages.

Artists such as comic D.L. Hughley on Aug. 15; Latin star Gloria Trevi on Aug. 23; comic Gabriel Iglesias on Aug. 30; singer and actress Audra McDonald on Sept. 5; season-opening comic Jay Leno, who will perform two shows on Sept. 20; actor and speaker Rob Lowe on Oct. 22; Broadway, TV and film star Kristin Chenoweth on March 24; and a return appearance by performance artists Blue Man Group for three shows April 8-9.

Those names just scratch the surface of what’s in store for Gallo Center audiences this year. Tickets for a “create-your-own” subscription series-only are on sale Wednesday, May 20, with a 15 percent discount for those who buy any five shows. Single-show tickets go on sale to Gallo Center donors on June 8 and to the general public on June 15. For a full list of the new shows, go to www.galloarts.org.

Patron input was instrumental, as always, as the new season took shape, according to Chief Executive Officer Lynn Dickerson and Director of Marketing & Public Relations Doug Hosner.

“I try really hard to be a good listener,” Dickerson said. “I’m so far removed from pop culture, so I recognize that I don’t know a lot of people out there, so when somebody suggests something to me, I check it out. I take them seriously.”

Getting Leno as the official season opener – the season unofficially starts July 3 with a return appearance by pop star Rob Thomas – was the first and most important piece of the puzzle for Dickerson.

“I worked super hard on the season opener,” she said. “That’s always a really stressful one for me because I try to get it that third weekend in September, and I try to get a really big name that will appeal to a really broad audience.”

It was no easy process. “We had to go back to the till like four times because (Leno) just kept turning our offers down,” Dickerson said. “Finally I had to go to the agent and say, ‘Look, what will it take?’ and he said ‘I think you can get him for this.’ And, you know, we all gulp because it’s a lot of money … but he is going to do two shows, so we think we can make it work.”

Leno along with Chenoweth and Iglesias are the center’s biggest wins for the coming season, Dickerson and Hosner agreed.

Booking Chenoweth was “like catching air,” Dickerson said. This is the third year the center has tried to book the star, whose busy schedule has proven a challenge.

“We had an offer in for months and months and months, and we had to go back to the drawing board a time or two in terms of offering more money, reconfiguring it,” Dickerson said. “At the end of the day, one of the ways we made it work with her time schedule was she asked if she could just do singing with a piano vs. a whole orchestra.”

Leno, Hughley and Iglesias are just three of many comedians on the slate, with others including Brian Regan (Sept. 9), “Weird Al” Yankovic (Sept. 16), Steven Wright (Sept. 18), Sinbad (Oct. 23), Kathleen Madigan (Nov. 13), Jeanne Robertson (Nov. 22) and Anita Renfroe (Jan. 16).

“It’s just that comedy does so well, it really does,” Hosner said. “I think what’s interesting about the lineup this year is you have a variety of comics who work in different styles in different ways.”

The center also continues to make headway in attracting top Latino artists, with Trevi leading the new season’s list.

“We finally got lucky and found a really great agent who specializes in Latino acts, and he is very well connected and he’s been just a lifesaver for us in terms of these acts,” Dickerson said. “(Trevi is) one of those (artists) we’ve had a million requests for, and the routing worked and we were able to make it happen.”

Other musical acts this year include Kenny Rogers (July 30), Gipsy Kings (Sept. 3), Ramón Ayala (Sept. 25), Richard Marx (Sept. 30), UB40 (Oct. 9), Olivia Newton-John (Oct. 16), Dave Koz (Dec. 21) and Little River Band (Feb. 26).

Also expanded this year will be the center’s Broadway offerings. On tap will be a touring production with a remake of “Annie” (Oct. 6-7), the 20th anniversary tour of “Riverdance” (Nov. 10-12), “Elf The Musical” (Nov. 17-18), “Million Dollar Quartet” (April 22-23) and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” (May 7-8). “Elf” is one show Dickerson has fought to bring – it eluded the center last year, when Modesto was shut out by a San Francisco venue.

While comedy and Broadway will be bigger, speakers will be down – way down – to one: actor Rob Lowe. The high price tags for most speakers often have not equated with corresponding ticket sales at the center, Dickerson said.

Lowe will speak on Oct. 22 about cancer survival. He’s become an activist in the fight against cancer, with a family history of the disease.

In addition to all the big names, the center will host several acts that may not be particularly recognizable but are ones Dickerson knows will be huge hits if people give them a chance.

“Every season at the center, there are always shows that take the audience by surprise, and then we get this amazing feedback afterward,” said Hosner. “So it’s led to something we’re going to do … we’re going to designate a handful of shows as ‘Lynn’s Picks,’ shows that we’re encouraging people to see, to take a chance on, even if they’re not familiar with it, don’t know the name – to experiment, try something different.”

The shows are ones Dickerson has seen or otherwise knows are sleeper hits she’s sure will blow people away.

Among those shows will be a return engagement of “Million Dollar Quartet.” The show re-creates the real-life December 1956 impromptu jam session between Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tenn.

“I loved that show so much, and I saw it in New York and told everybody about it,” Dickerson said. “And a lot of people did buy their ticket because I told them to, but I can’t get around to everybody so we’re going to do this little thumbs-up ‘Lynn’s Picks’ thing.”

It’s all part of a calculated gamble that goes into booking the season each year. A large part of the process is patron feedback and the Gallo Center’s Facebook page.

“We use (Facebook) a lot to say ‘What do you think about so and so,’ and we truly make decisions based on it,” Dickerson said. “there will be (shows) we think … are a slam dunk and we put it on Facebook and it’s ‘No, I don’t think so,’ and so we don’t book it because of that.”

The center also has used a marketing research specialist since 2008 whose surveys help them better understand the marketplace.

“Our patrons are telling us when we do these surveys what they like and what they don’t like, what they’re willing to pay for this and not willing to pay for that. And if you listen to the research, if you pay attention, it’s pointing you toward the programming, and I think that that’s what’s happened. We’re as closely attuned to our patrons’ preferences as any performing arts center in the United States,” Hosner said.

It’s a juggling act for Dickerson, who is looking to hit a variety of patron demographics and always striving to know more about what audiences want.

“I think every year we learn something and every year we get a little better at it,” Dickerson said. “At the end of the day, this really is about programming. It’s making sure you’re programming stuff that resonates with your patrons because we can be great at everything but if it’s not the right show, we can run down I Street with our hair on fire and nobody’s going to buy a ticket for it.”

This story was originally published May 19, 2015 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Slate of stars in store for Gallo Center audiences."