The Kennedy Center's Open Invitation

With apologies to Joni Mitchell, people have been playing real good for free for the past decade on the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage. And though nobody stopped to hear Mitchell's street clarinetist, that hasn't been a problem at the Millennium Stage since guitarist Charlie Byrd and pianist Billy Taylor christened it in March 1997 in front of a couple of thousand well-heeled Washingtonians.

Ten years and more than 3 million visitors later, the Millennium Stage remains without equal: the only cultural institution in the world to offer free performances of jazz, classical, dance, folk and more 24-7-365. And if you can't make it there, you can watch it anywhere. Since April 1, 1999, almost all Millennium Stage performances have been streamed live on the Internet.

In the early days, when the concept of a free-concert-a-day was still catching on, a little-known artist might attract a small crowd; on rare occasions, a choir might even outnumber the audience.

But crowds numbering in the hundreds have long become the norm in the Kennedy Center's Grand Foyer, where folding chairs are set up to hold several hundred people, with an equal number sitting on the carpeted stairs leading to either the Concert Hall or the Eisenhower Theater.

The Grand Foyer lives up to its name. It's one of the world's largest rooms -- someone came up with the fact that were the Washington Monument laid horizontally inside, it would fit with 75 feet to spare -- and can accommodate about 4,500 people. But more than 6,000 showed up in 2003 to see Colombian superstar Juanes perform. Seating for the 6 p.m. concerts begins about 5:30 p.m., and for that concert, queues stretched from the Hall of Nations and Hall of States all the way around the building. As people entered the Grand Foyer, they could look through the huge glass wall and observe the River Terrace line moving as well -- a gigantic, festive snake.

Whatever the program, the setting is splendid, particularly before daylight saving time kicks in. At sunset, light streams through the glass wall facing the Potomac, through landscaped willow trees on the River Terrace, a great location for before- or after-performance strolls. The terrace overlooks Theodore Roosevelt Island and the Georgetown waterfront, and you can watch boats floating downriver or the endless chain of planes approaching Reagan National Airport. (The latter can be disconcerting for first-timers; planes seem to be heading directly at the Kennedy Center before banking left for a landing.)

According to Garth Ross, director of the Kennedy Center's Performing Arts for Everyone initiative, the Millennium Stage sometimes makes use of the center's other venues, as when the Concert Hall hosts the National Symphony Orchestra's free performances because "it's the only place we can accommodate them." Last year's inaugural country music festival concluded with 4,000 people crowding the South Plaza for a Western swing dance by Asleep at the Wheel.

But nothing has ever been as complicated as Monday's 10th anniversary celebration of the Millennium Stage, with the center's three major halls offering free performances by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in the Eisenhower Theater, the NSO in the Concert Hall and indie rock icon Sufjan Stevens and members of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra in the Opera House. The U.S. Navy jazz ensemble, the Commodores, kicks things off at the regular Millennium Stage. Tickets for the three shows were distributed last week, but you won't need a ticket for the Grand Foyer, where all the performances will be projected on large screens.

Ross calls Monday's celebration "an endeavor to be all things to all people in one night in a way that's representative of the scope of our commitment and what we've represented artistically over all these years. We're going to be welcoming audiences into our three largest theaters, hopefully cementing the notion that Millennium Stage is a concept first, and not only a venue, but also knowing that the experience of being in those theaters is part of the Kennedy Center experience."

It's the culmination of a decade-long effort to bring the performing arts to the widest possible audience, to reduce the venue's elitist image and to open its doors to younger, more economically and racially diverse audiences that might not otherwise venture near the marble-and-glass edifice.

"It certainly feels to me that it has a much, much broader constituency now than 10 years ago," says James A. Johnson, chairman emeritus of the Kennedy Center and the man most responsible for the Millennium Stage, figuratively and literally. Johnson and his wife, Maxine Isaacs, were founding donors to the Millennium Stage Endowment Fund (to the tune of $1 million the first year), and he continues to attract donors to cover the Millennium Stage's annual $1.5 million budget, including current sponsors Target and the Fannie Mae Foundation.

Johnson was chief executive of Fannie Mae before he began his tenure as the Kennedy Center's fourth chairman in 1996, and there is a link between his old job and the Performing Arts for Everyone initiative he introduced that year. A populist approach, Johnson says, "was very much central to my mind. At Fannie Mae, I had tried to be a leader in diversity, in outreach to the community, particularly the minority community. The phrase we used to use is we've got to be unmistakably clear that this institution is not focused on 'white people in black tie.' "