Floor 2.5

Did you know that Millennium Park is one of the largest rooftop gardens in the country? Below this stage, the Pritzker Pavillion, the building and its adjacent parking garages extend another 7 floors below the Earth. In addition to parking, you'll find offices, practice and rehearsal rooms, auditoriums, public restrooms, and even a pedestrian walkway to the red line/blue line subway under Millennium Park! But first, you'll have to figure out how to get into this architectural freak of nature. And be warned: the floor plan of this building is just as convoluted as its rooftop is spectacular.

Having been inside the belly of the Pritzker Pavillion for auditions numerous times before, I wisely left myself some extra time to find the Harris Theater. I stepped off the train more than a half hour before rehearsal was slated to start and checked the info sheet that the personnel manager had emailed me just days before. All it said was:

Friday Rehearsal 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Harris Theater

201 E. Randolph Street

I went to the main entrance of the Harris Theater of Dance only to find it locked. The next door I found led to an underground parking garage, so I trotted around to the back of the building and tried the entrance I had used to get to my auditions. It was also locked. I walked the entire perimeter of the building, and could not find a way in. So I walked back around to the park side and found a janitor sweeping in front of the restrooms. He told me to enter through the parking garage, which seemed weird. So I retraced my steps, and along the way, I asked a maintenance guy, a random French hornist (who I hoped was going to the same rehearsal-- he wasn't), and a cop on a Segway how on earth I was supposed to get into the building.

Segway cop finally told me to take the parking garage elevators to floor 2.5 (I really hoped he wasn't joking, since, by this time, rehearsal was starting in 10 minutes) and to ask the first person I encountered in the concrete maze below how to get to the Theater from there. So I stepped off the elevator and followed the stark cinder block hallways around three sudden corners before I stumbled on a security desk.

Overcome with relief, I told the woman behind the desk what I was there for, and asked her to direct me to the rehearsal. She told me to follow the wide concrete hallway around two more corners and down a half flight of stairs, where I would find the Harris Theater.

I opened a heavy set of double doors and stepped on stage, but instead of hearing the familiar sounds of an orchestra warming up, I heard a power saw. Rehearsal was starting in two minutes, and it certainly wasn't in here. Power saw guy spotted me at the edge of the orchestra pit, looking bewildered, and asked me where I was trying to go. When I told him, he nodded knowingly, as if I wasn't the first person who had wandered into a dark theater looking for something that wasn't there.

So I followed his instructions and passed through the heavy velour stage curtains, stepping gingerly over a river of cables and wires, and opened the steel door he had described to find... a mess of rope pulleys for the curtains through which I had just passed. I was just about to retrace my steps to ask him again when I spied it; another steel door, barely visible behind some metal scaffolding. I carefully made my way over there, trying to avoid the sandbags that were holding the curtain ropes in place.

This door opened up into another nondescript hallway and, thankfully, not a closet. So as I crossed the threshold from backstage, the sounds of my own footsteps were quickly replaced by what was at that time (10:03 to be exact) the most glorious noise I'd ever heard; the cacophony of string players warming up their instruments with freshly rosined bows.

Running now, I bolted toward the sound and threw open yet another set of double doors at the end of the hallway and found the errant orchestra. I arrived frazzled and out of breath, but I beat the conductor to the room, so I hastily assembled my oboe and was prepared to give the tuning note with about 3 seconds to spare.

Once rehearsal was over, I packed up quickly and followed the regulars out a side door, which led to a green room and a set of elevators. Although it had taken me nearly 35 minutes to get into the building, it took me only a minute and a half to get out. If I'm ever called to sub with this group again, I'll be sure to request a map next time.