A $150,000 fundraising effort to target more high-profile programming at the Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC) has commitments of at least $90,000 as of last month. Mayor James Kennedy said the board of trustees at its last meeting gave approval to the executive director to pursue a handful of performances.

“It’s designed to have a decent rate of return to put on performances,” he said during a brief interview following his State of the City address this month.

There have been some additional verbal commitments for fundraising and other possibilities as well, the mayor said during a follow-up interview last week.

The center’s board is leaning toward musical performances and with several new board members, “there’s a new level of energy you can feel,” Kennedy said, adding that there’s been a recent emphasis on new board development.

Perhaps it’s time to bring back an old poll question, “What would you like to see at the Union County Performing Arts Center?” If you can believe it, it’s been two years (!) since we posed that question, with but a couple dozen faithful readers responding. Then there was this poll from April 2008 after UCPAC renovations were completed, which seemed to present a recurring theme among RR readers: Improve the programming. So…

“What would you like to see at the Union County Performing Arts Center?”

• Concerts
• Standup comedy
• Plays/musicals
• Movies
• Other