page_title: Long Center for the Performing Arts
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Long Center for the Performing Arts / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial night view of the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, Texas
context_page_description: The Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts venue located along Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin, Texas. The Long Center is the permanent home of the Austin Symphony Orchestra, Austin Lyric Opera and Ballet Austin, as well hosting other Austin-area performing arts organizations.
context_section_description: Lester Palmer Municipal Auditorium was the destination of United States President John F. Kennedy's arrival to Austin on November 22, 1963 when he was assassinated in Dallas. He was scheduled to give a speech for a sold-out dinner in the Grand Courtyard on Friday evening.  
  In the late 1990s Austin's primary symphony orchestra, opera group and ballet company were brought together by the need for a high-quality permanent performance venue. The three groups formed an organization called Arts Center Stage and began raising funds and developing plans for a new performing arts center they could share. Eventually they petitioned the City of Austin for the right to lease and renovate the Lester E. Palmer Auditorium on the south shore of Lady Bird Lake; a city referendum authorized the lease in 1998. In April 1999 the project was named the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts, after a couple who contributed a $20 million donation to the funding of the new facility.
  An original plan developed by Chicago architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was commissioned November 1999, and by August 2001, Arts Center Stage had raised over $61 million of its $110 million funding goal. The facility was designed to have four theatres, ranging in size from a 232-seat studio theatre to a grand theatre seating over 2,000 guests. With the slowing economy in 2002–3, the Long Center Board of Trustees, major donors, community arts leaders, and staff began researching alternative methods to improve project costs. A new project would be proposed and unanimously approved on October 2003, involving construction of the Long Center in phases. Phase I of the building project included the Michael & Susan Dell Hall (2,242 seats) and the Debra & Kevin Rollins Studio Theatre (229 seats). Phase II would include the Topfer Theatre and Recital & Education Building. 
  After 10 years of construction, the grand opening of the Long Center took place on March 28, 2008. Funding for the $77 million first-phase was provided for exclusively by private donations from more than 4,600 supporters.
caption: Viewed from the northeast
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