John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

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Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.). In 1958 President Eisenhower signed P. L. 85‐874, which provided land and authorized a private fund campaign to establish the National Cultural Center in Washington. Shortly thereafter Edward Durell Stone was selected to be the architect. Following the assassination of President Kennedy and just before the groundbreaking, President Johnson changed the center's name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, making it the only Washington monument to the late president. The Center, housed in a single, imposing building, contains three major auditoriums: the 2,318‐seat Opera House, the 1,142‐seat Eisenhower Theatre, and a 2,750‐seat Concert Hall. There are also three small houses, including the 512‐seat Terrace Theatre and a 120‐seat Theater Lab. The Opera House has been home to some large touring musicals, while the Terrace and Theater Lab have offered experimental productions. However, the principal legitimate activity has been in the Eisenhower. Under the chairmanship of Roger L. Stevens, the theatre has offered a series of distinguished new plays and revivals, several of which, such as the 1983 production of You Can't Take It with You, have gone on to Broadway. While the theatre component of the Kennedy Center is mostly concerned with national and international touring groups, it has co‐produced some Broadway musicals, such as Titanic (1997) and the 2000 revival of The Music Man, with the understanding that the productions play at the Center before or after the Broadway run. The most ambitious theatre project at the Kennedy Center in recent years was the summer‐long festival of Stephen Sondheim musicals in 2002, with a similar festival of Tennessee Williams works planned for 2004. These original productions at the Center point to a more active role in theatre producing in the future.

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC, national cultural centre opened in 1971. It contains three theatres, the largest being the Eisenhower, seating 1,142, which opened with a revival of Ibsen's A Doll's House starring Claire Bloom. It houses touring productions and also originates its own, and many famous actors have appeared there. Its premières have included those of the musical Annie (1977) and Arthur Kopit's Wings (1978), and the American première of Tom Stoppard's Travesties. Among notable revivals were Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes in 1981, with Elizabeth Taylor, and Kaufman and Hart's You Can't Take it with You in 1983, both of which went on to Broadway. The Terrace Theater, seating 512, and the Theater Lab, seating 120, stage small-scale and experimental works, the latter offering many free presentations of the Center's educational programme. There are also a concert hall, an opera-house (which also takes musicals, including the American première of Les Misérables), and a Performing Arts Library.