FLORIDA PLACE TO EXPLORE
Kravis Center for the Performing Arts
Palm Beach County · South Florida & the Keys
A performing arts center that opened fully funded in 1992, named for a Tulsa geologist by his friends rather than by himself.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
The Kravis Center opened on Okeechobee Boulevard in September 1992, and its dedication week gave the community a full week of free performances before the gala that November. It is named for Raymond F. Kravis, a geologist who wintered in Palm Beach for more than 35 years, after a consortium of his friends put up more than seven million dollars in 1985 for the naming, so the name is a tribute rather than a founder's. Fundraising ran far enough ahead of the building that the center opened fully funded, which was unusual enough at the time to make international headlines. Performances are spread across Dreyfoos Hall, the Rinker Playhouse, Persson Hall and the Cohen Pavilion, in a building designed by the Toronto architect Eberhard Zeidler with acoustics by Russell Johnson. Dreyfoos Hall is the largest of the four rooms and takes the touring productions; the Rinker Playhouse and Persson Hall take smaller work, and the Cohen Pavilion holds event and education space. Having four rooms of different sizes on one site is what lets the center run a touring musical and a chamber recital on the same evening
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