Theatre Design & Technology - Feb 1968 - 18

On the other hand, professional studies had already determined that the present site is suitable: The District Traffic
Commission, the National Parks Service, and the National
Capital Planning Commission spent a year and a half studying it with the architect and his consultants to ensure that
it would function.

Which group of experts is wrong? Or is the better question
whether anyone can be right in this complicated age? In the
case of Kennedy Center, it seems now that no one can be
totally right. Regardless, instead of becoming a vital part of
Washington's living culture, Kennedy Center will probably
always seem isolated like an old-fashioned mummified museum
of art, and this negative image will be critical to the cultural growth of our population.
Programming for Constituent Users. At least as controversial as the location is the question of what performing
arts groups will use Kennedy Center. It is designed to contain four halls, one each for musical concerts, opera and
ballet, non-intimate theatre, and intimate theatre-each hall
envisioned as an ideal house for one type of performing
art. Roger L. Stevens, Chairman of the Center, envisions the
theatres as showcases for all the nation's performing arts
organizations whenever they are in Washington. All sorts of
travelling groups are to be invited.
Although this meticulous hospitality must surely have its
merits, the controversial issue is that the program does not
provide a home for any performing group from the District
of Columbia or its environs-including several diStinguished
groups that have no permanent homes.
In music, the National Symphony Orchestra, which plays in
the D.A.R. 's Constitution Hall (one acoustician describes it
as "every bit as good as an armory for playing musicl and
the Opera Society of Washington are the mOSt notable. And
there is no indication that either would automatically play in
Kennedy Center, much less be able to consider it as a permanent base.
In drama, on the other hand, most local groups already have
their own playhouses-including The Arena Stage and the
university drama groups at Georgetown, Catholic, American,
Howard, and George Washington. And, in any case, none of
these groups would be well housed in Kennedy Center's
large theatre.
Model. John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington.
D.C. by Architect Edward Durell Stone, seen from the entrance
plaza. Photo: Louis Checkman, courtesy Edward Durell Stone. Architect.

Finally, Washington has several distinguished series ofchamber music and solo recitals, such as those at the Library of
Congress and the National, Corcoran, and Phillips galleries.
Those at the Smithsonian need an adequate recital hall,
and the Institute of Contemporary Arts has no permanent
home of any kind.
But Kennedy Center is not planned to include a recital hall
that would accommodate any of these intimate programs.
Washington will still be without an equivalent of New York's
Town Hall or of the new recital halls at Lincoln Center's
Juilliard School, which will soon become the center of New
York's recital and chamber music. Unmistakably, this is a
flaw in the program, which was written after a fairly exhaustive study of local groups.
On behalf of the Center's management, it should be admitted that by not declaring any organization a permanent
resident, the Center avoids several problems: no company is
immediately "nationalized" by such recognition; no company
is given any apparent proprietorship of any of the Center's
halls; and, thereby perhaps, the Center will avoid the squabble for autonomy and independence that is still going on
among the Lincoln Center constituents, a dispute which has
dissolved that once unified body.

But the potentiality of appointing a resident organization at
a future time is restricted because the design of the building does not provide adequate space for a resident company's shops or storage facilities. Page Donhauser, the Project Architect for Edward Stone, points out, on the other
hand, that rehearsal space and dressing rooms adequate for
resident companies have been built into the present program.
Not only is Kennedy Center's program inhospitable to Washington's own established and respected performing groups,
it does not set out to create any organizations that might
grow to become national companies. (Originally, it will be
remembered, the Center was planned as the home of five
companies which were to be created. When this program
and its budget were considered "too ambitious" even by
President Kennedy, Roger Stevens was called in and advised
cutting the program back to its present scope, apparently
that is, to make the Center a road-house). However, the
Center is once more investigating the possibility of founding
new companies, in line with its original program.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Feb 1968