1683 Best Performing Arts Venues in USA

Symphonic music, jazz, rock, contemporary music (hip-hop, R&B, pop, and more), Broadway theater, opera, dance, and movies are presented in the popular open-air TD Pavilion and the standing-room-only (bring a blanket or chair) Skyline Stage in Fairmount Park from May through September. In summer, the Philadelphia Orchestra has some performances at the Mann. The site has great skyline views.

Completed in 1861, occupying an entire city block, this Gothic-style brick building is now an arts center but was originally the headquarters, foot drill hall, and social club for the Seventh Regiment, a National Guard unit called the \"Silk Stocking\" regiment because its members were mainly drawn from wealthy Gilded Age families. The reception rooms on the first floor and Company Rooms on the second floor were designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, Stanford White, and other fashionable designers of the time. A major renovation included restoring the Tiffany- and White-designed Veterans Room and the building's facade. These days the armory is used for trade shows, huge art installations, plays, and concerts, which take full advantage of the 55,000-square-foot drill hall. Intimate artist conversations, recitals, and experimental performances are held in the smaller, first- and second-floor spaces. A 75-minute walking tour visits the first-floor period rooms, the drill hall, and part of the second floor; buy tickets in advance.

A cinematic treasure since 1925, University Avenue’s grande dame is a time-traveling spectacle not to be missed—an oasis of Hollywood Golden Age glamour in the center of this relentlessly future-minded region. Everything here is majestic: the grand marquee, the bi-level interior, the intricate architecture and chandeliers, and the crisp screen and audio quality often showing black-and-white films still in mint condition. Films are often shown as a themed double-feature, perhaps Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or 1929 silent films. Arguably the highlight for any night is when the Mighty Wurlitzer organ player strikes a tune during the intermission between films.

Stanford’s stunning main performing arts center is a wonder of distinct curves, sharp modern design, and top-notch acoustics; it's pleasing both to eyes and ears. Concerts are split between various Stanford orchestras, choral groups and other ensembles, and musicians visiting from outside the university.

Bay Area theater legend Robert Kelley founded this company in 1970, and today it continues to be one of the most thrilling performing arts destinations in the region. Performances are split between the intimate Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto and the grander, newer Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. The fare is never overly edgy yet is always full of innovative touches. The cast and set designs are consistently top-tier.

Opened in 2011 on the CSUN campus, the $125 million Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts, colloquially referred to as The Soraya, stages concerts (mostly big names in classical and jazz), live theater, speakers like David Sedaris, screenings with live accompaniment, and dance recitals throughout the year in its 1,690-seat performance hall and 175-seat black box theater. This LEED-certified three-tiered vision of gleaming glass, bright stone, and undulating warm wood puts on a world-class jazz festival every February. Particularly fun are the more intimate shows that turn the main stage into a makeshift supper club with a complimentary pre-show wine tasting, servers, and a four-course meal created by a popular nearby cafe called Humble Bee. It has a side hustle as a filming location: recently, it's been seen in Westworld, The Good Place, and Paradise. 

Arguably the most famous landmark in the neighborhood, no visit to Harlem is complete without stopping by the legendary Apollo Theater. Michael Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald, and James Brown are just a few of the world-class performers who have appeared on this equally famed stage. Apollo's Amateur Night begins their 92nd season January 2026, with shows every Wednesday night. Having recently undergone a massive renovation, The Apollo Stages at The Victoria opened in 2024. It includes two new flexible theaters---one with 99 seats and one with 199 seats---as well as Apollo office space, located on the third and fourth floors of The Victoria building, which is conveniently connected to the Renaissance New York Harlem Hotel. To dive in deeper, take a tour, held on Monday at 11 am and 1 pm, Wednesday at 11 am, and Saturday at 11 am and 1 pm, which must be reserved in advance.

Overlooking the Potomac River, the gem of the Washington, D.C. performing arts scene is home to the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera. The best out-of-town acts perform at one of three performance spaces—the Concert Hall, the Opera House, or the Eisenhower Theater. An eclectic range of performances is staged at the center's smaller venues, which showcase chamber groups, experimental works, cabaret-style performances, and the KC Jazz Club. But that's not all. On the Millennium Stage in the center's Grand Foyer, you can catch free performances almost any day at 6 pm. And the REACH, a major indoor-outdoor, state-of-the-art expansion designed by Steven Holl and completed in 2019, provides a dynamic, open-air, collaborative space and a pedestrian bridge that connects with the other presidential memorials on the National Mall.

On performance days, a free shuttle bus runs between the Kennedy Center and the Foggy Bottom–GWU Metro stop.

Five Points favorite The 5 Spot is a great place to grab a quick drink and an even better spot to catch a show or cut a rug. The venue/bar hosts a bevy of local musical talent, as well as a number of weekly dance nights, including the wildly popular Motown Mondays, which features—you guessed it—a danceable selection of soul and R&B classics.

Renamed

The 92nd Street Y, New York—92NY, for short—this grand Upper East Side cultural institution is undergoing a $200 million plan to redevelop its campus, expand its programming, and revamp and enhance performance spaces. Well-known soloists, jazz musicians, show-tune stylists, and chamber music groups perform in 92NY's freshly renovated 904-seat Kaufmann Concert Hall and in the new Arnhold Center, a dance and performance complex with an adjoining dance studio. But the programming is hardly limited to music and dance—its calendar brims with popular lectures and readings series featuring big-name film and TV stars, authors, poets, playwrights, scientists, medical experts, political pundits, and media bigwigs (many events are live streamed and archived online). Film programs, arts-and-crafts workshops, and family-friendly events are also worth checking out.

This immense, stately venue across from Temple Square is famed for its soaring glass lobby and Dale Chihuly sculpture and is home of the Utah Symphony and other distinguished events like the Wasatch Speaker Series featuring names such as Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Rob Reiner, and Annie Leibovitz.

Sometimes it’s not the elements but how they are combined. Absinthe became insanely popular—doing as many as three shows a night on weekends—by turning Cirque du Soleil's opulent, dreamlike aesthetic on its head. A downscale, shabby-chic vibe unifies circus acrobatics, raunchy comedy, and saucy burlesque numbers inside a pavilion in front of Caesars Palace (which is surrounded by Green Fairy Garden, operated by the show producer to offer pre- and post-show drinks and burgers). The audience surrounds the performances on a small, 9-foot stage. The festive, low-tech atmosphere is furthered by the host, a shifty insult comic known as The Gazillionaire. This is cheap raunch with a wink, and audiences have been in on it since 2011.

Downtown's premier live entertainment venue, the 2,750-seat Moody Theater in the heart of the Second Street District plays host to some of the best chart-topping acts in the world, including Willie Nelson whose statue stands proudly at the front entrance. The amphitheater is also home to the Austin City Limits TV show, the longest running televised music series in American history. If you can snag tickets to a live taping, whether it's Kacey Musgraves or Black Pumas, don't miss the chance. Next door to the theater's main ticket office, there is a more intimate sister-space, ACL Live at 3Ten, that offers a different lineup in a much smaller surrounding.

Dedicated to preserving and exhibiting independent and avant-garde film, the Anthology Film Archives has two screening rooms (seating about 200 and 100, respectively) as well as a film repository and a library, all inside a 1919 redbrick courthouse. Cofounded in 1970 by the downtown legend and filmmaker Jonas Mekas, Anthology remains a major destination for adventurous and unusual movies, new as well as old. The Essential Cinema series delves into the works of canonized groundbreaking directors; the frequent festivals are more eclectic.

The first regional theater company to win a Tony Award performs innovative American theater, reviving such classic plays as Oklahoma and also showcasing the country's best new playwrights. The architecturally magnificent Mead Center for American Theater houses three stages and, after the Kennedy Center, is the second-largest performing arts complex in Washington. Near the Waterfront neighborhood in Southwest D.C., the Mead Center features the Fichandler Stage, a theater-in-the-round seating 680; the Kreeger Theater, a modified thrust seating 514; and the Kogod Cradle, a 200-seat black-box theater for new or experimental productions.

The 2,776-seat Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, built in 1928 in an Italian rococo revival style, hosts rock concerts, choral groups, lectures, and concerts by the Oregon Symphony and others. "The Schnitz," as locals call it, is one of the venues that make up the Portland'5 Centers for the Arts umbrella organization.

Downtown galleries are open late and the streets are hopping during this lively, much-anticipated event, held on the second Saturday of each month.

One of the best theater troupes in Sarasota stages productions year-round in varying venues, which include the Historic Asolo Theater on the Ringling estate.

Focusing on everything from chamber music to jazz, the Aspen Music Festival and School begins on the Thursday before Independence Day and runs for eight weeks. Musicians perform at hundreds of events held at the 2,050-seat Benedict Music Tent, the Victorian Wheeler Opera House, and the Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall. Tickets are available online. A quarter of the performances are free, and one of the festival's great pleasures is showing up on the free-seating lawn outside the Benedict Music Tent with some friends and a blanket.

The Atlanta Ballet, founded in 1929, is the country's oldest continuously operating ballet company. It has been internationally recognized for its productions of classical and contemporary works. Artistic director Gennadi Nedvigin has aimed to elevate the technical skill of the group since taking the helm in 2016. Most performances, except for the annual Nutcracker, are held at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

As much as Austinites love music, they love being outdoors even more. The result is this flagship six-day music festival spanning two weekends in October; it's Austin's unofficial farewell-to-summer shindig that takes over Zilker Park. Seventy thousand fans from around the world flock to hear more than 100 international, national, and local acts on nine stages. Featured headliners have included the likes of Bob Dylan, Dua Lipa, Björk, Phish, Willie Nelson, and Billie Eilish.

Built in 1927, the stunningly restored, eminently quirky Bagdad Theater shows first-run Hollywood films on a huge screen and serves pizza, burgers, sandwiches, and McMenamins ales. The Bagdad is a local favorite.

This respected professional ballet company performs both classic and original works at the Capitol Theatre. Its inner-workings were featured in the multiseason reality show Breaking Pointe.

Home of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the Bardavon 1869 Opera House is the state's oldest continuously operating theater. The beautifully restored auditorium has an active program of theater, music, dance, and comedy.

Founded in 1931, this highly respected theater company presents dramas and comedies June–August.

In the summer, this theater company keeps two stages bustling with creative activity. The Main Stage hosts major musical productions and big names, while a smaller black box theater showcases new works-in-progress. Cabaret nights and a winter 10-minute play festival round out the yearly offerings.

The Choir of the National Shrine, a professional choir of 16 voices, performs every Sunday at the Shrine's Noon Mass, in addition to visiting choral and church groups that occasionally perform at one of the largest Catholic churches in the Americas. Every summer and periodically throughout the year, recitals featuring the massive pipe organ are offered. See the website for times and visiting performers. 

Every August, Bay Chamber mounts a three-week series of mostly classical concerts at its Camden concert hall and in a variety of other venues around town, both indoors and out. Some events are free and others are ticketed, with discounted admission for young audience members. Series highlights include candlelit concerts, jazz in the Camden Library Amphitheater, and the popular Bach for Breakfast series.

The Belcourt Theatre is Nashville's only independent movie theater, first established in 1925 as the Hillsboro Theater. Reopened after extensive renovations in 2016, the newly updated and expanded Belcourt plays host to new films, old classics, special events, speakers, concerts, and more. The Belcourt has all kinds of snacks and drinks (including alcoholic beverages) available, so come hungry.

This local film festival, among the most popular in the state, takes place in October.