Performances shine despite less than inviting confines

By SID SMITH
The Chicagom Tribune

There are new theaters you love instantly, and there are those that grow on you after accumulated memories of great art and good times seep into the surroundings and come out whenever you visit.

My guess is that the new Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance, which opened Saturday at 205 E. Randolph St. in Millennium Park, will be in the latter category for a lot of us. There is nothing warm or particularly inviting about either the mostly stark white lobby areas or the metallic, industrial black-and-gray look of the spacious auditorium.

Education will help boost dance, new theater

By PETRA ADELFANG
The Chicago Tribune

Chicago -- As I read various stories on the new Joan W. & Irving B. Harris Music and Dance Theater ("Joan and Irving Harris' long dance-- How the marriage of wealth and arts advocacy resulted in the Music and Dance Theater," Arts & Entertainment, Nov. 2), I thought to myself, "Can Chicago really support dance the way New York City can? Are people genuinely interested in the craft and in the process of putting together a performance?

Joan W. Harris: Messiah to wandering music and dance troupes

By JOHN von RHEIN
The South Florida SUn-Sentinel
December 28, 2003

Chicago's midsize music groups and dance companies have long resembled a chorus of the nomadic needy, wandering from one inadequate theater to the next, continually frustrated in their attempts to find permanent homes. In retrospect, what they all were looking for was a messiah, someone with the money and the civic clout to bring them together under one magnificent roof and make audiences and contributors eye them with renewed respect.

They found such a messiah in Joan W. Harris, 72, the rich and powerful former Chicago cultural affairs commissioner who has long been one of the city's most tireless arts advocates.

It was she who, along with her husband, Irving B. Harris, 93, a former industrialist, made possible the new downtown landmark that bears their names.

Irving B. Harris, 1910-2004

by SEAN D. HAMILL
special to the Chicago Tribune

"He liked business, and he was good at it," said his wife of 30 years, Joan, his second wife. "But I think in the end, what really yanked his chain was his work with the not-for-profits.

"His ability to assess risks and investments in business carried over to his work with not-for-profits."