VANITY FAIR NOMINATES Harvey Lichtenstein

Hall of Fame

BECAUSE in the 32 years he headed the Brooklyn

Academy of Music (BAM) he turned it from a tired-out concert hall where Caruso had once sung into the leading showcase of avant-garde performing arts in America, BECAUSE he did this in culture-lite Brooklyn, bereft by the time he arrived on the scene even of the Dodgers and its only major newspaper, the Eagle. BECAUSE he consistently showed faith in the brightest native visionaries—Robert Wilson, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Twyla Tharp, John Adams, Peter Sellars, Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones and Amie Zane. BECAUSE he also imported the best work of the most serious international artists—

English director Peter Brook, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, French director Ariane Mnouchkine, German choreographer Pina Bausch, France-based American opera director William Christie. BECAUSE he nurtured a local symphony orchestra and created the Next Wave Festival for works by everyone from Steve Reich to Lou Reed to Tom Waits, BECAUSE over the years his baby grew to such an extent that he added a second building, the BAM Majestic Theater, in 1987 and a film complex last year, BECAUSE on his retirement this month, as the Majestic becomes the BAM Harvey Lichtenstein Theater, he leaves New York art-lovers with a worldrenowned center of entertainment.

WAYNE LAWSON