Sidney Harman Hall is a theater located at Sixth and F Streets NW in Washington, D.C. It opened officially on October 1, 2007.
Along with the existing Lansburgh Theatre, it comprises the new Harman Center for the Arts, the home of the Shakespeare Theatre Company. The Toronto architect Jack Diamond designed the theatre and Paul Beckmann of the DC firm Smithgroup designed the building that houses the theatre at a cost of $89 million. [1]
The Harman seats 775, an increase over the Lansburgh’s 451. The stage was designed to be flexible with multiple staging configurations possible since the performance space will be made available to other arts groups besides the Shakespeare Theatre Company. The walls of the theater are panels of makore, an African wood, and behind the panels are retractable velour curtains, which can be raised to alter the acoustics of the room. The first several rows of seats are on movable wagons that can be either set parallel to the stage or rotated to form a thrust stage.[2]
The theatre is named for Dr. Sidney Harman, a philanthropist and Shakespeare Theatre Company Trustee.