3 Best Performing Arts in San Miguel de Allende and the Heartland, Mexico

Facing Plaza Gertrúdis Bocanegra (aka Plaza Chica) is a lovely old theater recently restored to its original glory and now showing art films from Wednesday through Sunday at super-bargain prices. Films are in their original language with English or Spanish subtitles.

Guanajuato is completely mobbed each fall for the Festival Internacional Cervantino. For nearly three weeks each October, world-renowned actors, musicians, and dance troupes perform nightly at the Teatro Juárez and other local venues. Plaza San Roque, a small square near the Jardín Reforma, hosts a series of Entremeses Cervantinos—swashbuckling one-act farces by classical Spanish writers, such as Cervantes. Grandstand seats require advance tickets, but crowds often gather by the plaza's edge to watch for free. Guanajuato's nightlife also reaches a peak during the festival, and revelers from different parts of Mexico walk through the city streets and display their regional pride by jumping up and down and chanting the name of their hometown. If you're going to be among the hundreds of thousands who attend the festivities annually, contact the Festival Internacional Cervantino office well in advance to secure tickets for top-billed events, or contact Ticketmaster. However, if you're not a fan of elbow-to-elbow crowds morning, noon, and night, you should avoid the festival.

Even when it's not festival season, Guanajuato still has drama, dance, and musical performances at Teatro Juárez as well as at several other theaters, museums, and restaurants throughout the city. Pick up a pamphlet called Guanajuato Programa de Eventos to see what's happening.