CENTER TRIES TO SET DATES FOR POP ACTS

In a best-case scenario, the Orange County Performing Arts Center would start adding jazz, pop and country concerts to its classical music and dance offerings as early as November, Executive Director Thomas R. Kendrick said Friday.

“It is possible,” Kendrick said. “We have a couple of dates on hold in November.”

On the other hand, Kendrick said that if scheduling problems cannot be resolved, proposed bookings of acts such as George Benson, Earl Klugh, Emmylou Harris and David Sanborn might be pushed back until fall of 1987.

Kendrick confirmed that Center officials are negotiating with Los Angeles-based Pacific Concerts and other promoters with the intention of booking pop concerts on nights that the Center isn’t occupied with symphonic, dance and theatrical performances.

Kendrick also said he will travel to Nashville later this month to talk to representatives of country music performers.

But the Center has relatively few available open dates during its inaugural season and that is causing some scheduling problems, Kendrick said.

“Quite frankly, we’ve been more successful than we thought,” he said. “The problem is simply that we are heavily booked until June and only have scattered single dates available.

“Because of the overwhelming success of the Pacific Symphony, they have doubled their schedule, which took away a large number of dates. And we had to wait very late for the bookings of the Broadway musicals.

“We have a lot of time available in the summer, but the problem then is that late spring and summer is when the (Irvine Meadows and Pacific) amphitheaters are going. We can’t compete with them.”

It’s something of a Catch-22, Kendrick said. The fall and winter seasons--ideal for booking pop acts because the amphitheaters are closed--will be the Center’s busiest periods because that is when most orchestras, dance and theatrical troupes tour.

“We want to do it (this year),” Kendrick said. “But if we can’t do the single concerts, which are expensive to advertise, we may have to wait until next year and put together a pop concert series.”

One of Pacific Concerts’ two partners said that as a new promoter in Southern California’s highly competitive concert market, he is anxious to work with Center officials in establishing the 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall as an alternative Orange County venue for the likes of Benson, Klugh, Sanborn and other jazz, pop and even comedy acts.

“They haven’t said ‘no’ to anything I’ve suggested so far,” said Larry Ahearn, a former Avalon Attractions executive who started Pacific Concerts earlier this year with Roger Sheppard. Sheppard formerly worked for the Nederlander Co. booking the Pacific Amphitheatre and the Greek Theatre. Nederlander and Avalon are the Southland’s two largest promoters of pop concerts.

During Kendrick’s tenure as director of operations of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn and other country acts were booked at the Washington complex. Kendrick said he wants to continue that practice in Orange County, adding that the Center will stick to jazz, country and soft rock music in concert bookings. Harder rock acts have been ruled out because “the hall isn’t built for that,” he said.

But Ahearn said he hopes “they might go as hard as a Kenny Loggins or a James Taylor.”

Benson, Klugh, Sanborn and others Ahearn mentioned as possibilities at the Center have appeared in scaled-down seating configurations in Orange County’s 15,000-plus-capacity outdoor amphitheaters. But he said they might prefer the smaller Center, where they would not be faced with a sea of empty seats. “You should always go to the size facility that suits you,” Ahearn said.