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The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance (also known as the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, the Harris & Harris Theater or, most commonly, the Harris Theater) is a 1,525-seat theater for the performing arts located along the northern edge of Millennium Park on Randolph Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, US. The theater, which is largely underground due to Grant Park-related height restrictions, was named for its primary benefactors, Joan and Irving Harris. It serves as the park's indoor performing venue, a complement to Jay Pritzker Pavilion, which hosts the park's outdoor performances. Constructed in 2002–2003, it provides a venue for small and medium-sized music and dance groups, which had previously been without a permanent home and were underserved by the city's performing venue options. Among the regularly featured local groups are Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Opera Theater. It provides subsidized rental, technical expertise, and marketing support for the companies using it, and turned a profit in its fourth fiscal year. The Harris Theater has hosted notable national and international performers, such as the New York City Ballet's first visit to Chicago in over 25 years (in 2006). The theater began offering subscription series of traveling performers in its 2008–2009 fifth anniversary season.〔〔〔 Performances through this series have included the San Francisco Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Stephen Sondheim. The theater has been credited as contributing to the performing arts renaissance in Chicago, and has been favorably reviewed for its acoustics, sightlines, proscenium and for providing a home base for numerous performing organizations. Although it is seen as a high caliber venue for its music audiences, the theater is regarded as less than ideal for jazz groups because it is more expensive and larger than most places where jazz is performed. The design has been criticized for traffic flow problems, with an elevator bottleneck. However, the theater's prominent location and its underground design to preserve Millennium Park have been praised. Although there were complaints about high priced events in its early years, discounted ticket programs were introduced in the 2009–10 season. ==Background and construction== The Harris Theater was built to fill the need for a modern performance venue in downtown Chicago, which would be a new home for previously itinerant performing arts companies.〔 Such troupes were never sure from year to year where they would be able to perform; for example, the ''Chicago Tribune'' reported in 1993 that six dance companies lost their performance space during renovations at the Civic Opera House. The need for a new theater was identified by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in a 1990 study; the new venue had to be flexible, affordable, and technically and physically "state-of-the-art". Once the need was identified, the theater was the culmination of "years of planning by Chicago's philanthropic, arts, business and government leaders" including groups like Music of the Baroque, which now perform there regularly.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=About Harris Theater )〕 The plan also extended Chicago's performing arts district, which had been predominantly west of Michigan Avenue, east towards Lake Michigan, and linked it more with the Museum Campus and Michigan Avenue cultural institutions.〔〔 The Harris Theater is in Grant Park, which lies between Lake Michigan to the east and the Loop to the west, and has been Chicago's front yard since the mid-19th century. Grant Park's northwest corner, north of Monroe Street and the Art Institute, east of Michigan Avenue, south of Randolph Street, and west of Columbus Drive, had been Illinois Central rail yards and parking lots until 1997, when it was made available for development by the city as Millennium Park. As of 2007, Millennium Park trails only Navy Pier as a Chicago tourist attraction. In 1836, a year before Chicago was incorporated,〔Macaluso, pp. 12–13〕 the Board of Canal Commissioners held public auctions for the city's first lots. Foresighted citizens, who wanted the lakefront kept as public open space, convinced the commissioners to designate the land east of Michigan Avenue between Randolph Street and Park Row (11th Street) "Public Ground—A Common to Remain Forever Open, Clear and Free of Any Buildings, or Other Obstruction, whatever."〔Gilfoyle, pp. 3–4〕 Grant Park has been "forever open, clear and free" since, protected by legislation that has been affirmed by four previous Illinois Supreme Court rulings. In 1839, United States Secretary of War Joel Roberts Poinsett declared the land between Randolph Street and Madison Street east of Michigan Avenue "Public Ground forever to remain vacant of buildings".〔 Aaron Montgomery Ward, who is known both as the inventor of mail order and the protector of Grant Park, twice sued the city of Chicago to force it to remove buildings and structures from Grant Park and to keep it from building new ones.〔Macaluso, pp. 23–25〕 In 1890, arguing that Michigan Avenue property owners held easements on the park land, Ward commenced legal actions to keep the park free of new buildings. In 1900, the Illinois Supreme Court concluded that all landfill east of Michigan Avenue was subject to dedications and easements.〔City of Chicago v. A Montgomery Ward, 169 Ill. 392 (1897)〕 In 1909, when he sought to prevent the construction of the Field Museum of Natural History in the center of the park, the courts affirmed his arguments.〔Gilfoyle, p. 16〕〔E. R. Bliss v. A. Montgomery Ward, 198 Ill. 104; A. Montgomery Ward v. Field Museum of Natural History, 241 Ill. 496 (1909); and South Park Commissioners v. Ward & Co., 248 Ill. 299〕 As a result, the city has what are termed the Montgomery Ward height restrictions on buildings and structures in Grant Park; structures over tall are not allowed in the park, with the exception of bandshells.〔Flanagan, p. 141.〕 Therefore, the theater is mostly underground,〔Gilfoyle, p. 181〕 while the adjacent Jay Pritzker Pavilion was described as a work of art to dodge the height restriction. The theater is named for its primary benefactors, Joan and Irving Harris, who gave a gift of $15 million gift ($ million in current dollars) and a $24 million ($ million) construction loan to the Music and Dance Theater Chicago; this was believed to be largest single monetary commitment ever to a performing arts organization in Chicago. The Harrises had a long history of philanthropy benefitting the arts.〔〔 The Harris Theater was designed by Thomas Beeby of Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge Architects; his previous work in Chicago includes the Harold Washington Library Center and the Art Institute of Chicago Building's Rice Wing. Thornton Tomasetti was the structural engineer.〔〔 The building is located on ground leased from the City of Chicago,〔 and cost $52.7 million ($ million in current dollars).〔 Construction began on , 2002,〔 and the theater opened for use on , 2003. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Harris Theater (Chicago)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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