73 Best Performing Arts Venues in San Francisco, California

Home to 10-plus music stages, ranging from drum and bass to techno-pop, this music festival for up-and-coming DJs is part Mardis Gras, part Burning Man, and all San Francisco.

Physicality and high-flying style are the hallmarks of this original group, a blend of modern dance and theater. Works include narrative, video projections, and song, and they succeed at being both poignant and funny.

Twentieth-century works and a number of premieres make up the programs for this always entertaining, Grammy Award–winning string ensemble, which spends much of the year traveling throughout the United States and abroad.

The performance of plays by black writers such as August Wilson and Langston Hughes is the raison d'être of this company, which performs at various venues throughout the city.

Once the late Sam Shepard's favorite showcase, pint-size Magic presents works by rising and established playwrights who create thought-provoking plays that explore the world's diversity. It has produced a number of world premieres.

Founded in 1973, this nationally acclaimed modern dance troupe sometimes performs with popular local musicians such as the Kronos Quartet and the Paul Dresher Ensemble. Jenkins's highly gestural style sometimes suggests the influence of the late Merce Cunningham, one of her teachers in the 1960s.

Marin County's annual film festival, in early October, is a renowned community event. The films shown span the genres, from features and documentaries to video, animated, and experimental film.

This three-stage complex focuses on contemporary LGBTQ+-themed works and newer small-production musicals, as well educational plays and classes for young people.

The acrobatically inclined group generally performs at the Circus Center around Christmastime, with fire-breathing jugglers and high-flying trapeze artists. There are a few smaller productions in San Francisco and the Bay Area throughout the year.

This weeklong festival in February or March is widely considered to be one of the country's top showcases for what's new in indie-pop and alt-rock and is held at Slim's, the Great American Music Hall, The Independent, and other cool clubs. Founded in 1993, the low-key festival has helped local fans discover such talented acts as Modest Mouse, Kristin Hersh, and Bettie Serveert. (Phone info about the event is best obtained by calling the individual venues.)

The Gothic Revival church, completed in 1872 and rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake, hosts a notable free chamber-music series on Tuesday at 12:30.

Highly popular with kids, this 10-person dance troupe holds an annual Yuletide version of The Velveteen Rabbit (mid-November to mid-December), at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, that ranks among the city's best holiday-season performances. The group's main repertory season generally runs intermittently between January and June.

The well-respected Friday-evening and Sunday-afternoon series includes chamber music, choral works, vocal soloists, new music, and jazz.

The four theaters and their screens are small, but this is often the last place you can see an independent or foreign film before it ends its run in the city. It's great for indie-film-loving procrastinators, but if you arrive late for the show, you may have to sit in the front row of the tiny screening room.

Affiliated with the University of California, this theater screens a comprehensive mix of classics, American, and foreign films.

The spectacular art-deco Paramount screens a few vintage flicks (The Sting, Casablanca) every month and presents live events.

This ensemble has been lauded as the nation's preeminent group for performances of early music. Its season of concerts, fall through spring, celebrates composers of the 17th and 18th centuries, including Handel, Vivaldi, and Bach.

A lively, modestly priced alternative to grand opera, this company's concert performances of popular and seldom-heard works are mostly in English. Offenbach's operettas are frequently on the bill during the season, which runs from February through July. Concerts are held at various locations, including the Legion of Honor.

This modern-day salon is made for both dance aficionados and those just ballet-curious. The choreography is colorful and "outside the lines" of your usual dance troupe. In true bohemian spirit, admission is pay-what-you-can (suggested donation is $10–$30), and sometimes food is served as well.

This is San Francisco's oldest continually operating theater, which turned 100 back in 2009. Film noir and indie features and documentaries, as well as first-run movies and classic foreign cinema, are the specialties. It's also home to the city's Noise Pop Festival. Monday nights are discounted.

Asian and Asian-American cinema is the focus of this March festival, presented by the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM). The lineup includes feature and short films and videos—everything from animation to documentaries.

The Bay Area has always been at the forefront of hip-hop, so it's no surprise that the world's first hip-hop festival, founded in 1999, is held here. Professional dancers from all over North America perform and give master classes at local studios for three days in November.

This popular event presents a slate of movies that are defiantly out of the mainstream. IndieFest caters to a younger demographic and specializes in oddball fare rarely programmed at other festivals; DocFest performs the same service for documentaries that you won't find at the local multiplex.

For two weeks at the end of spring, the San Francisco Film Society—which also sponsors year-round screenings and film series—takes over several theaters, including the Castro Theatre, the Sundance Kabuki Cinema, and Pacific Film Archive, to launch this festival. The event schedules about 300 films, documentaries, and videos from 50 countries; many are U.S. premieres.

The world's oldest and largest festival honoring gay and lesbian films takes place at various venues for two weeks in late June.

Documentaries, feature films, and Bollywood movies are shown at this weeklong festival in November.

Every year starting in October, concert halls, clubs, and churches throughout the city host this acclaimed two-week festival. The popular event, which got its start in 1983, has featured such big-name acts as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, and McCoy Tyner, as well as newer jazz stars like Brad Mehldau and Chris Botti.

In late July and early August, the Castro Theatre and other Bay Area venues screen films as part of this event. Parties on the opening and closing nights of the festival celebrate the films and filmmakers.

The politically leftist, barbed satires of this Tony Award–winning troupe are hardly mime in the Marcel Marceau sense. The group performs afternoon musicals at area parks from the July 4 weekend through September, and taking one in is a perfect way to spend a sunny summer day.

SFP brings an eclectic array of top-flight global music and dance talents to various venues—mostly the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Davies Symphony Hall, and Herbst Theatre. Artists have included Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, and Midori. Tickets can be purchased in person through City Box Office, online, or by phone.