When you get to be 100 years old, you get lots of birthday parties-and a bit eager to celebrate.
A full 265 days before the actual anniversary, supporters of the Auditorium Theatre, the architectural jewel of Congress Parkway, threw the first centennial bash Sunday night as a fundraiser for its restoration.
The 500 guests, an eclectic mix of movers and shakers from industrialist Lester Crown to society grande dame Pussy Paepcke, were feted with the three- hour production of Victor Hugo`s ”Les Miserables” and a Francophile feast in the theater`s lobby and on the mezzanine.
While waiting for the meal that began and ended with truffles (the mushroom delicacies that go for $45.50 a pound and the sinful chocolates of the same name), guests kept busy playing hide-and-seek with the cast of ”Les Miz.”
Boots Nathan, apparently a fan of the actor who played Jean Valjean, burrowed between bodies calling out, ”Is 24601 here?” That was the prison number Valjean had stenciled on his chest, and Boots was bent on getting a peek.
The Auditorium`s friends paid $200 each to go to the party, which was sponsored by Sara Lee Corp., the Chicago Committee on the French Revolution and supporters of the Auditorium. The evening netted $50,000, which will launch a $10 million centennial campaign for renovation and establishment of an endowment.
The Auditorium has led a long and storied life. In 1886, Chicago business tycoon Ferdinand Peck hired architects Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan to create the $3.2 million theater. On Dec. 9, 1889, the opening ceremony was presided over by President Benjamin Harrison. Box seats cost as much as $2,100.
Before moving to Orchestra Hall in 1904, Theodore Thomas` Chicago Orchestra called the Auditorium home. In 1910, the Chicago Grand Opera Company moved in and stayed for two decades.
In World War II, there was little use for a cultural hall, and 14 bowling lanes were installed on stage. After a few dark decades, the theater got a $3 million facelift, performed by architect Harry Weese, and reopened in 1967.
Now, Auditorium officials seek nothing less than to ”create a Kennedy Center of the Midwest,” said Dulcie Gilmore, executive director of the theater. ”We want a first-class technical facility; we already have a first- class building.”
