When Yvonne Bell moved to the desert to become the McCallum Theatre’s senior vice president of development in May 2021, she thought she was starting the final job of her career.
“I was thinking, ‘Wow, I’m getting close to retiring,’ she said during a recent interview. “I was very excited, like, ‘Yeah, this is my last gig, and I’ll then retire and play bridge and do whatever people do when they retire.’ Then this opportunity came up—and I couldn’t say no.”
That opportunity: In May, Bell was named the McCallum Theatre’s chief executive officer. She took over for Robert McConnaughey, currently the McCallum’s president and chief financial officer, who became interim CEO following the retirement of longtime CEO Mitch Gershenfeld in 2024.
As the McCallum kicks off its 2025-2026 season with a performance by the Righteous Brothers on Wednesday, Sept. 10, Bell finds herself leading the organization at a time when a lot of things are changing—at the McCallum, in the Coachella Valley performing-arts world, and in the country as a whole. The first big change, as far as the McCallum is concerned: expanding on the theater’s traditional November-to-April season.
“We want to take the McCallum to the next level and have it be on par with performing arts centers across the nation,” Bell said. “A big piece of that is in the programming, and running the season from September all the way through June. … By having a diversity of performances and artists here, we’re really focused on building audiences. It’s going to take a while, but we’re bullish about it. … That November-through-April timeframe was based upon the country clubs’ (schedules), so if we want to serve the wider Coachella Valley community, we need to look at the full-time residents.”
The McCallum—and the Coachella Valley economy as a whole—have traditionally gotten a big boost from snowbirds and seasonal visitors, many from Canada. But heading into the 2025-2026 season, it appears many Canadians will be avoiding the United States, due to President Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric toward the country. Bell conceded that so far, ticket sales for the new season are “not as strong as they were” in previous years. However, she said she had confidence in the theater’s new marketing department—and in a big change the theater is making at the box office: For the first time, the McCallum is using a dynamic pricing model for ticketing. This means ticket prices will change, depending on various market factors. For example, if a show is not selling well, the theater can lower the ticket price to sell more seats, or if a show is selling quickly, it can raise the price on tickets not yet sold.
“An experience for an artist is as important as an experience for an audience member,” Bell said. “I’ve sat through shows that are a quarter full, and that changes the experience. The artists deserve better than that, too, so we’re going to make sure this house is full.”
In a time when many organizations are running away from DEI—diversity, equity and inclusion—Bell said the McCallum remains committed to diversity. She pointed to the theater’s programming for Hispanic Heritage Month (mid-September through mid-October), starting with a show by Camila Fernández on Sunday, Sept. 14, as well as a pre-Greater Palm Springs Pride show by drag artist Sasha Velour on Wednesday, Nov. 5, as proof the theater is not backing down.
If you take a quick look at the McCallum schedule, you’ll notice that among the newer shows and old favorites (including series like National Geographic Live!, and Jeffrey Siegel’s Keyboard Conversations), there is a two-week gap, in late October. Bell said the gap is evidence of the McCallum’s increasing profile in the Broadway/theater world.
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (The Musical) is going on tour again, and they haven’t done it in a while, so the producers are doing a two-week tech rehearsal here to make sure all the pieces of the new tour come together, and then there’ll be three performances at the end of that tech rehearsal” (on Sunday and Monday, Nov. 2 and 3),” she said. “Hopefully, that’ll continue with other shows. … Every new show does that when they start on tour. It’s usually been on the East Coast, in godforsaken cities (in the winter) like Syracuse, Rochester and Elmira. … I think McCallum now has the opportunity to start a tour here with teching. Certainly, if I were an actor or producer, I’d rather be in Palm Springs teching.”
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Is the first of seven Broadway shows on the McCallum’s 2025-2026 schedule. In previous years, many of the Broadway tours came to Palm Desert for three-day, five-show weekend stops. This season, five of the six Broadway shows after Grinch—including Shucked (Nov. 25-30), Moulin Rouge! The Musical (Dec. 9-14) and Beetlejuice (March 24-29, 2026)—will have longer McCallum runs.
“Now that we’re having musicals (come to town) for a week, we’re eligible to join the Broadway League, and so I think that’s going to be another big resource,” Bell said. (The Broadway League is the national trade association for the Broadway-show industry.)
The 2025-2026 McCallum season is the first in almost a quarter-century that does not primarily feature the work of Mitch Gershenfeld. Bell said this season’s programming was a “team effort.”
“A big muscle behind all of this is our chairman, Garry Kief, and he is a theater kid at heart,” Bell said. “I’m a theater kid at heart. We, together, we have a vision for what a well-run sophisticated theater looks like. … We hired a vice president of programming, and then our president and CFO also worked on the programming. But I got my stuff in there. I was behind the dance. … Garry, I credit him in full for saying, ‘We need to have more current Broadway shows. We can’t be doing Waitress from 15 years ago.’”
Given Bell’s passion for dance performances—which she said started when she began her career in 1980 by helping open the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles—it’s no surprise that she listed MOMIX’s Dec. 5 show, ALICE (inspired by Alice in Wonderland) among those she is most eagerly anticipating.
“I first saw (MOMIX) probably 30 years ago, and they’re very athletic, and extremely talented,” Bell said. “It’s very visual. They tell a story not only through dance, but with costumes, kind of in an illusionistic way.”
Bell also said she’s looking forward to a series of performances that will mark a McCallum first: In June, the McCallum will host a jazz festival, in partnership with the Pacific Jazz Orchestra.
“We’re going to be activating the entire McCallum Theatre,” she said. “We will have programming in the Founder’s Room; we’ll have programming in the lobby. We will have programming, of course, on the main stage. (Most people) think of a jazz festival as like, ‘Well, you’re outside, and you have a picnic and you can go from here to here.’ We’re trying to stretch that and say, ‘Well, what if we did that, and it was inside the McCallum Theatre?”
Bell said she, Kief and their team want to raise the bar across the board at the McCallum.
“I so enjoy moving the needle,” Bell said. “It’s so much fun.”
Tickets for the 2025-2026 season at the McCallum Theatre, located at 7300 Fred Waring Drive, in Palm Desert, are on sale now. For tickets or more information, call 760-340-2787, or visit www.mccallumtheatre.org.
I am a full time resident who has lived here 10 years now. I wholeheartedly supported The McCallum the first five years. After year six or so I found the shows to be the ‘same old, same old’ with nothing ever new and exciting. Certainly nothing for those who enjoy newer or younger, modern performers. I did reach out a couple of times to the McCallum expressing my concerns; however, I felt they fell on ‘deaf ears’. And through the following years I found myself not signing up for the specials and buying less and less tickets. I am hoping for a change; however, I did not hear it in your interview.