LEWISTON — “The Broadway Dolls” are New York City regulars. They played a 20-date tour in China last fall. In two weeks, they head to Alaska.

Saturday, they were all about the Franco-American Heritage Center, scheduled to sparkle, slink, tap and dance across the stage at the Lewiston center’s fundraising gala, the first time the group has performed in New England.

It was a cool get for Executive Director Louis Morin and Richard Martin, the center’s program manager and events director.

The Midcoast Symphony Orchestra had headlined that same gala for the past 12 years.

“Some board members suggested to me that despite their immense musical talent, it might be time to change things up a little,” Morin said. “And did we ever.”

This season at the center, which runs from September to June, Morin has helped bring first-timers such as singer Anna Lombard, country band Midnight Rose and Erica Brown and the Bluegrass Connection. All the while, he’s getting used to the unexpected in the massive former church, such as a $20,000 leak in the roof.

Morin took over from longtime director Rita Dube a year ago and has changed up a few things. He’s scheduled more shows, going after a more diverse audience. Some traditions, such as the Festival Franco Fun, are out. And last month, the board adopted a new informal name for the building’s public face: the Franco Center.

“I just remember being elated when I was offered the job,” Morin, 48, said. “It’s a pretty good gig.”

Before retiring, Dube had fronted the center for 12 years, since St. Mary’s was rescued from demolition and began its long transformation in 2000.

Former Lewiston mayor and board member Lionel Guay said the board had no question in hiring Morin, who used to direct marketing and public relations for the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. With any new leadership comes an adjustment.

“Rita could do no wrong; what we have here, we can be thankful for her,” Guay said. “(Louis is) from away. Even Skowhegan is away. Unless you’re from Lewiston or Auburn, you’re from away.

“She was an institution,” he said. “Louis is doing a top job.”

Morin’s first year has been spent getting up to speed on the intricacies of the operation: performing arts, catering, being a cultural landmark and being a local repository. The center has a room with French albums, books and diaries that belonged to local people. Families bring them when loved ones die and they aren’t sure what else to do.

“In fact, (the room) is dangerously full right now and we don’t have enough space to display it all,” Morin said.

His biggest challenge: “Keeping the lights on, the bills paid, the stairs shoveled. This is not a cheap place to run.”

It costs $17,000 a year to heat the center with natural gas; with oil heat, that figure used to be $40,000-plus. The electricity bill is another $13,000 and plowing is $8,000, with salaries and insurance on top of that.

Corporate donations, about $80,000 a year, are huge in defraying that, he said. Individuals have donated about another $15,000. He’s hoping to up that to $20,000 this year.

Ticket sales help, too.

Two seasons ago, the center took in $35,000. Last year, with 25 shows, most lined up before Morin came on board, tickets generated $39,000.

This season, with 31 shows, he’s projecting $47,000 to $48,000 in ticket sales.

“Constantly hearing that phrase, ‘Wow, I never knew,’ or ‘Who knew?’ told me there was a big, untapped audience that hadn’t been here before,” he said.

Since the beginning, Guay said, the board has had an in-house edict: 20 to 25 percent of programming has to be French.

In the mix with medieval feasts and a rock-reggae band is Joelle Morris, a singer who grew up in France, and La Rencontre, the monthly meal entirely en Francais that regularly draws 200 people.

Names alone, Morin said, can be deceiving in a look at the calendar. Popular performer Louis Philippe sings Frank Sinatra covers. Erica Brown attended St. Mary’s with her family when it was still a church.

“If a performance by someone who used to come here as a child isn’t French, I don’t know what French is,” Morin said. “A nice little piece of serendipity.”

The center is in some ways wrestling with aging demographics and some flagging interest. Not enough people signed up last month for an adult French class for beginners or the “Fun in French” class for children, either.

The next six-week session in November has enough for both.

After a challenging 2011, Guay said the board decided going into the Festival Franco Fun last summer, “If the next one was not profitable, we’re pulling the plug.”

It was getting difficult to find volunteers; the festival was already a smaller version of the longtime Festival de Joie. The board, with Dube still at the center’s helm, decided to end it.

“Eventually, we’re going to have to look at that 20, 25 percent (Franco programming minimum) and say it’s not realistic anymore,” Guay said. “You come to the La Rencontre, if there’s two people who don’t have white hair, we’re lucky.”

Though the decision about the festival was made before his arrival, Morin did have a hand in deciding to stop a summer cultural exchange program with St. Come, Quebec. He said he discovered the center didn’t have abuse and molestation coverage on its insurance policy, which would have cost thousands.

“Last year, we sent 12 kids and 11 of them were girls between 10 and 13,” he said. “There was no formal vetting process in place to ensure the safety of the children we sent to Canada or to guarantee the safety of Canadian kids who come here.”

Morin said he was disappointed; his parents were both born, and later married, in St. Come.

The center launched a new website this summer and Morin is at work on a French-language version, a first for the group, to be unveiled by the end of the year.

“I see the beginning stirrings of a revitalization here” when he looks around downtown, Morin said. “To run a nonprofit is to constantly be on edge; it’s the nature of the job.”

In addition to those heating and lighting bills, he has to raise $1 million for masonry repair.

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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