Harper Theater in Chicago

Some of my friends who have given performances of Price's Adoration have sent me video recordings which I have been listening to in the my Chicago hotel room (using headphones, of course) while Michael sleeps. Festivities over at the hospital begin this morning at 10:00 (labs, an appointment with my doctor, and a procedure to insert a port under my right collarbone for the chemotherapy I will get tomorrow and then for the stem cells that will follow the next day).

Our hotel, on Harper Court and 53rd Street is located in what feels like the center of the universe. Last night we walked across the street to Virtue, where we had a remarkable dinner, and this evening we are planning to cross the same street and see Toy Story 5 at the Harper Theater.

I have had this constant thought over the past several months that Florence Price, who lived on the south side of Chicago, and played the organ in movie theaters, might have worked in this neighborhood. I wonder if she ever played at the Harper. And while doing all this wondering, I can't seem to figure out any reason why she wouldn't have.

The theater was built in 1913 as a vaudeville house and became a movie theater in 1935. You can read a little about it here. It had a Kimball organ. Florence Price was an organist and a composer, who certainly would have been able to improvise accompaniments to the silent movies that would have been shown at the Harper.

Here is a Facebook page about the Harper that has a great photo (I can't figure out how to include it in this post using hotel wifi). And here's a 2008 post in Hyde Park Progress (long live the blogosphere) that has a great deal of information about the Harper Theater.