Jay Janner
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
MASS Ensemble performs in Dell Hall at the Long Center during Thursday's open house. The $77 million performance venue is offering free shows all weekend, though audience members must have tickets for performances Saturday and Sunday.
Kelly West
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
People look at the view from the Kodosky Donor Lounge in the Long Center on Thursday. The center, at West Riverside Drive and South First Street, was built with many recycled materials.
Jay Janner
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
From left, John Hanna, Leland Freeman, John Hrncir and Elaine Danielson check out the 2,400-seat Susan and Michael Dell Hall during the Long Center open house Thursday. The center will be open through Sunday for tours and performances by Ballet Austin, Grupo Fantasma and others.
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LONG CENTER
Austin's Long Center opens "Sneak Peek Weekend" curtains
Free events available through Sunday at new two-venue performing arts complex.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN ARTS WRITER
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Neither rain nor wind nor a Texas-size cold front could stop the curious Thursday night from coming to the new Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts for the first of several free open house events that will continue through Sunday.
By 8 p.m., two hours after the doors of the two-venue $77 million complex opened, a couple hundred people had shown up for an evening of building tours and a free performance by New York-based music group MASS Ensemble.
Tours and a free performance by MASS will be held again from 6 to 10 tonight.
Before the show, visitors tried out the views from seats in the 2,400-seat Michael and Susan Dell Hall, the Long Center's main venue; got a peek at the backstage areas of the Debra and Kevin Rollins Studio Theatre; and admired the sweeping views of downtown from the lobby windows.
Linda Overton, who first visited the Long Center for a Feb. 14 public sound-check concert, said she was eager to return and thoroughly tour the venue: "I just wanted to get know the building better because I intend to use it a lot."
Overton said she lives just a few blocks south of the Long Center, which is on the site of the former Palmer Auditorium at West Riverside Drive and South First Street.
"I like that it's in walking distance and that they used recycled materials to build it," Overton said.
The Long Center reuses 65 percent of the materials from the Palmer Auditorium, including the distinctive green and brown tiles that covered the Palmer's dome.
Officials say they expect bigger crowds to show up Saturday and Sunday, when a range of free music and theater performances are scheduled from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. both inside and outside on the center's City Terrace. Children's activities and other events area also planned.
"Actually, the weather is giving us a great chance tonight for a dress rehearsal for this weekend," Long Center Executive Director Cliff Redd said.
Though the individual performances this weekend are free, tickets are required and have been moving briskly, said Jack Banning, Long Center director of marketing.
By Thursday afternoon, more than 1,200 had been claimed for Sunday night's concert by cumbia-funk band Grupo Fantasma in the Dell Hall; more than 800 had been claimed for a Ballet Austin performance Saturday.
jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699
