1679 Best Performing Arts Venues in USA

The spectacular Palace Theatre, a restored movie-and-vaudeville house, hosts pop concerts and touring Broadway shows. It's the home of the Albany Symphony Orchestra.

This seasonal (it's open mid-May through mid-September) performance venue at Pioneer Park hosts a nightly show called Golden Heart Revue, a musical-comedy show about the founding and building of Fairbanks. Grab a bite to eat at the Salmon Bake before the fun-for-the-whole-family show, which starts at 8:15 pm.

Plays, comedy shows, concerts, ballet, kids' shows, and film festivals are presented at the 1,600-seat Palace, originally a vaudeville house, which is now owned and operated by Stamford Center for the Arts.

This 1914 former vaudeville house presents musicals and plays, comedy, and concerts throughout the year.

Palisade celebrates the harvest for four days every August during the Palisade Peach Festival, most of which is held at Riverbend Park.

Housed in an intimate venue with only 218 seats in downtown West Palm Beach, the modus operandi is "theater to think about," with plays by Pulitzer Prize winners on rotation.

Still going strong after more than 60 years, three main-stage productions are offered during the season from January through April at the Kravis Center, with English-language supertitles. There's an annual Children's Performance when all tickets are $5, plus a free outdoor concert at the Meyer Amphitheatre in downtown West Palm Beach. Tickets start at $25.

In mid-January, this 12-day festival brings campaigning Oscar hopefuls and nearly 200 feature films from several dozen countries, plus panel discussions and documentaries, to various venues around town. The weeklong ShortFest, North America's largest short film fest and market, takes place in June. The Film Society that sponsors it also hosts one-off cinematic events throughout the year. 

Located adjacent to and operated by the Portland Art Museum, PAM CUT (Center for an Untold Tomorrow) screens art films, documentaries, and independent features, and presents festivals, workshops, and other cinema-related events.

This February horse-drawn parade and festival is an Arizona tradition featuring cowboys, cowgirls, horses, and floats.

Street performers, live bands, a parade, and festival atmosphere dominate University Circle during the waning days of spring. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Natural History Museum, Botanical Garden, and pretty much every other facility in University Circle stage special attractions and activities during the day's events. And don't worry about going hungry: A fine sampling of Cleveland's ethnic cuisine is available.

At one of the largest events on Oahu, you can stroll, drink in hand, through an authentic Hawaiian village, learn traditional arts and crafts, and play local games. The lively stage show includes a fire-knife dancer, singing emcee, and both traditional and contemporary hula and other Polynesian dances. A finale dance features participation from the audience. Admission includes the buffet, activities, and the show. You pay extra for table service, box seating, and shuttle transport to and from Waikiki—but the stunning sunsets are free. It starts daily at 5.

A glorious art-deco specimen, the Paramount operates as a venue for performances of all kinds, from comedy shows to the Oakland Ballet and Oakland Symphony. Docent-led tours ($10), offered on two Saturdays a month, are fun and informative.

Designed by renowned local architect Temple H. Buell in the art deco style in 1930, the lovingly maintained Paramount in downtown Denver is both an elegant place to see shows and a rowdy, beer-serving party location for rock fans to enjoy large-scale concerts.

Across from the Plaza Hotel stands the Paris Theatre—a rare, stately remnant of the single-screen era. Opened in 1948, the historic cinema was purchased by Netflix in 2019 and today serves as an elegant, wide-screen showcase for original Netflix productions as well as art-house and classic-film screenings. Tickets can be purchased online in advance, with the option to select seats, too.

Exceptional plays and musicals, occasionally featuring known TV and movie actors, are what this theater is mostly known for. The 650-seat playhouse is a historical landmark that’s been operating as a theater since 1925, and holds the title of official state theater of California. Tours of the venue are available by appointment.

Pawleys Island comes alive each October during this festival that brings national and local artists together for a month of concerts, exhibitions, and readings. Past performers have included David Sanborn and Delbert McClinton. There's also a winter series in February.

From mid-June through late September, the Payomet Performing Arts Center of Truro presents a wide range of concerts, plays, films, music, and classes inside a big tent at Cape Cod National Seashore. Past performers have included Tom Rush, the Cowboy Junkies, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. There's also a kids' circus camp, and Cirque by the Sea professional circus shows for families.

Situated along the Reedy River, the Peace Center's theater, concert hall, and amphitheater present star performers, touring Broadway shows, dance companies, chamber music, and local groups.

In honor of the famous local crop, this popular event has been held the Wednesday to Saturday after Labor Day since 1904—the longest continually celebrated harvest festival in Utah. There's a Peach Queen pageant, two parades, a carnival, theater and concerts, classic car and motorcycle shows, art and crafts booths, and, of course, freshly baked peach cobbler.

The Palms's 2,500-capacity music hall has an inventive layout to create great sightlines, and locals love the easy access and parking. It has a flat floor for either general admission or reserved seating, and two decks of fixed seating. Bookings skew more toward veteran musical acts and comedians, running the gamut from the Go-Go's to DL Hughley. It occasionally hosts boxing and mixed martial arts events as well.

PECO, Philadelphia's primary electric provider, sponsors a series of free-to-attend summer festivals along Penn's Landing. Each installment focuses on a different cultural tradition, welcoming food, music, dance, and vendors from around the world. Programming changes yearly, but recent slates have included ACANAfest, by the African Cultural Alliance of North America; Brazilian and Mexican independence celebrations; the Philadelphia Irish Festival; and the Islamic Heritage Festival. The events may be held in several locations in the Penn's Landing area, so be sure to check in advance. 

Boiled peanuts are royalty at this annual fest held in Pelion each November, featuring rides, a parade, a pageant, and a fireworks show.

The Pendragon Theatre, a year-round professional company, performs classical and new works. Special events include mystery dinner-theater shows.

Best described as artsy but accessible, Penn Live Arts presents national and international works of dance, music, circus, theater, and multidisciplinary groups at the Annenberg Center of Performing Arts. The performing arts complex on the UPenn campus features the 115-seat Bruce Montgomery Theatre and the 936-seat Zellerbach. Check out what's happening—this is a good bet to find high-quality performances, even last-minute tickets are usually available, and the Zellerbach has very few bad seats.

The World Trade Center site’s final public element opened in 2023, adding a major cultural attraction to Lower Manhattan. The Perelman Performing Arts Center, or PAC, is a striking architectural vision wedged between the WTC’s skyscrapers and the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. It’s built like a patterned stone cube rising 10 stories, its entry stairs and elevator tucked modestly below on Fulton Street, with innovative lighting making the facade’s 5,000 half-inch-thick marble tiles appear to glow at night. Its 90,000 square feet encompass the Lobby Stage with free shows (Thursday–Sunday); the lobby's modern, elegant restaurant and bar, Metropolis by Marcus Samuelsson; and three principal theaters within. What makes the PAC uncommon, however, is that each venue can be used independently or by combining them. The auditoria can transform into more than 60 stage-audience arrangements, with capacities ranging from 90 to 950 seats. Artistic programming is intended to be as daring as the architecture, with a wide array of works, including feature commissions, world premieres, co-productions, and collaborative work across theater, dance, music, opera, film, and more. Tickets are priced for all budgets.

Founded in 1980 inside a 19th-century public school building, Performance Space 122 has helped launch the careers of many downtown musicians and artists, both on the fringe and otherwise. Familiar names that graced the marquee over the years include Spalding Gray, John Leguizamo, and Young Jean Lee. After a renovation, it reopened in 2018 with two new theaters and a modernized interior. Expect a schedule of interdisciplinary works that blend performance with installations and readings by different artists with varied visions.

A truly great performance space, the center hosts live theater, dance, and music.

Founded in 1979, this professional theater company performs classics and new productions from September through May. The company also stages plays in Anchorage each season, and some shows have toured more extensively, among them the all-Tlingit version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which traveled to the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Perseverance is Juneau's most high-profile group, but also worth checking out are Theatre in the Rough, a fantastic all-volunteer theater troupe that's been staging Shakespearian works and other classics twice a year since 1991, and two opera companies, Juneau Lyric Opera and The Orpheus Project.