9 Best Performing Arts in Tucson, Arizona

A Wednesday-night chamber-music series is hosted by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music at the Leo Rich Theater in the Tucson Convention Center from October through April. There's also a music festival the first week of March.

This Phoenix-based company puts on five major productions each year at the Tucson Convention Center's Music Hall.

From September through May, Arizona's state theater performs classical pieces, contemporary drama, and musical comedy at the historic Temple of Music and Art. It's worth coming just to see the beautifully restored historic Spanish colonial–Moorish-style theater; dinner at the adjoining Temple Lounge is a tasty prelude.

This company presents new stories of the Southwest border region—often multicultural and bilingual—at venues throughout Tucson, usually from September through April.

A beautifully refurbished old movie palace, the art deco Fox Theatre hosts film festivals and mostly folk-rock concerts.

One of Tucson's hottest venues, the Rialto Theatre, once a silent-movie theater, now reverberates with the sounds of hard rock, jazz, folk, and world-music concerts. You can experience great musicians up close for reasonable ticket prices.

Much of the city's cultural activity, including opera, touring Broadway shows, and Tucson Symphony concerts, as well as the international gem and mineral show, takes place at the Tucson Convention Center. Within this complex are the Arena, the Music Hall, and the smaller Leo Rich Theater.

The first weekend in April brings the Tucson Poetry Festival and its four days of readings and related events, including workshops, panel discussions, and a poetry slam. Such internationally acclaimed poets as Jorie Graham and Sherman Alexie have participated.

Part of Tuscon's cultural scene since 1929, this orchestra performs at the Tucson Convention Center and at sites in the Foothills and the Northwest from October through May.