On Monday (10/28) at Philly.com, Stephan Salisbury writes, “On Tuesday, Avenue of the Arts Inc., the nonprofit created in 1993 to ‘reinvigorate Broad Street as the arts and entertainment heart and soul of Philadelphia,’ will mark its 20th anniversary…. The Avenue’s behemoth, the Kimmel Center, with its two theaters—the 650-seat Perelman and the 2,500-seat Verizon Hall—at Broad and Spruce, opened in 2001, to provide a home for a half-dozen resident companies…. The move of the orchestra to the Kimmel from the Academy of Music opened that beautiful old house to full use by Opera Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Ballet, as well as providing a venue for traveling shows…. Anne Ewers, president and chief executive of the Kimmel Center, called the [2,000-student University of the Arts] ‘the unsung hero’ of the Avenue. She cited … the university’s efforts in creating a pop-up garden, and student performers … in the Kimmel’s free daytime performances in the vast interior Commonwealth Plaza…. The Kimmel’s Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, held in 2011 and again this year, also ‘helped us figure out how to draw crowds into the plaza consistently,’ she said. ‘People are viewing this now as a true space for the community.’ ”
Posted October 31, 2013
