D.C. marks opening of Harman Center

WASHINGTON -- The nation’s capital, never short on drama, is giving William Shakespeare a grander stage.

With fanfare fit for new presidents and an audience of supporters that included actor Sam Waterston, Chelsea Clinton, the Duchess of Gloucester and two of the Supremes (Justice Stephen Breyer and former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor), D.C.’s Shakespeare Theater Company this week inaugurated its expanded home, the Harman Center for the Arts. Over the next eight months, the center will present the Bard’s “Taming of the Shrew,” “Julius Caesar” and “Antony and Cleopatra.”

The new center comprises the company’s existing 451-seat Lansburgh Theater and, around the corner, the new 775-seat Sidney Harman Hall. The 21-year-old troupe will use the stages to expand productions and educational programs and host performances by other arts associations, including the Washington Ballet, the Washington Bach Consort and the Summer Opera Theater Company.

“Here, in this wonderful space, we will reach a new, younger, multinational, multilingual, multicultural audience that will embrace what we do, I have no doubt,” said Harman, the project’s chief benefactor, in remarks to a black-tie gala audience at the new hall bearing his name.

The 88-year-old founder and executive chairman of stereo speaker-maker Harman International Industries, Harman won naming honors by giving $19.5 million on behalf of his family toward the project’s $89.3-million cost. His wife is Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice). So far the company has raised more than $69 million from 2,400 donors, including $20 million from the District of Columbia.

Although it is home to Arena Stage, one of the country’s most highly regarded resident theaters, and the Kennedy Center, Washington has long lacked a mid-size performance space downtown. The new Harman Hall, located across from the Verizon Center sports arena in the busy Penn Quarter neighborhood, will be “a national destination theater,” Shakespeare Theater artistic director Michael Kahn said.