STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Backers of the new Argyros Performing Arts Center have tapped former Sun Valley Summer Symphony Director Jenny Krueger to line up touring headline acts for the new center.

The performing arts center is on track to open in fall 2018 on the former site of the nexStage Theater at First and Main streets in Ketchum, said Tim Mott, who started the ball rolling on the new center.

Krueger, who has been named the center’s program director, has been charged with signing opening acts between Thanksgiving and New Year’s 2018.

She also will be reaching out to community groups who might want to present a program or event at the center within the first few months of the opening.

In addition:

• The board of directors is preparing to launch a search for an executive director who will run the day-to-day business of the center.
• Sally Onetto has agreed to join the campaign committee. Sally and her husband Marc Onetto were among the center’s earliest founding benefactors.
• Sally Gillespie has been named campaign director in charge of organizing the fund-raising efforts. With 14 months of construction and fundraising to go, the center has secured $9.5 million, or 80 percent of its goal of $12 million. The center received $1.5 million in gifts and pledges over the summer.