The Clay
This small but comfortable single-screen theater dates to 1910 and shows first-run art-house films.
69 Best Performing Arts Venues in San Francisco, California
Sophisticated, offbeat, and often ahead of the curve, San Francisco's performing arts scene supports world-class opera, ballet, and theater productions, along with alternative-dance events, avant-garde plays, groundbreaking documentaries, and a slew of spoken-word and other literary happenings.
The heart of the mainstream theater district lies on or near Geary Street, mostly west of Union Square, though touring Broadway shows land a little farther afield at big houses like the Orpheum and Golden Gate. But theater can be found all over town. For a bit of culture shock, slip out to eclectic districts like the Mission or Haight, where smaller theater companies reside and short-run and one-night-only performances happen on a regular basis.
The city's opera house and symphony hall present the musical classics, and venues like the Fillmore and the Warfield host major rock and jazz talents, but the city's extensive festival circuit broadens the possibilities considerably. Stern Grove is the nation’s oldest summer music festival that remains free to this day; Noise Pop is the premier alt-rock showcase putting such acts like Modest Mouse on the map; and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is a beloved celebration of bluegrass, country, and roots music, attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees from all over the nation every year.
The range of offerings is just as eclectic on the film front. San Francisco moviegoers love blockbuster hits like everyone else, but they also champion little-known indie and art-house flicks and flock to the interactive sing-along musicals presented at Castro Theatre. Nearly every month an important film festival takes place. During warmer months, many of the city’s parks host free movie nights outdoors showcasing film classics or pop-culture favorites.
San Francisco also has a rich dance scene, from classical dancers to jugglers. And it doesn't take stadium seating to make a performance space. Cafés, clubs, and bookstores often host poetry readings or author lectures.
Embarcadero Center Cinemas
Shows often sell out at this extremely popular five-screen theater, which screens the best in first-run independent, art-house, and foreign films.
Ethnic Dance Festival
About 30 of the Bay Area's ethnic dance companies and soloists perform at this event, which takes place over three weekends in June. Some performances may offer half-price tickets for children under 16 years of age.
Recommended Fodor's Video
Film Night in the Park
One of the best times you can have watching a movie in San Francisco—and it's free—the Film Night in the Park is wildly popular. Put on by the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, the event shows free films throughout the city from mid to late summer. Films like The Graduate, JAWS 3 in 3D, Sixteen Candles, and Citizen Kane are screened in outdoor spaces such as Union Square or Dolores Park. All shows begin at dusk. Bring a picnic, but chairs are not welcome.
Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse
Some of the most talented practitioners of folk, blues, Cajun, and bluegrass perform at the alcohol-free venue.
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
The city's top free music event, as well as one of the greatest gatherings for bluegrass, country, and roots music in the country, takes place in late September or early October. Roughly 50,000 fans turn out to see the likes of Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Del McCoury at Hellman Hollow (formerly Speedway Meadows) in Golden Gate Park.
How Weird Street Faire
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.
Kronos Quartet
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.
Lorraine Hansberry Theatre
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.
The Marsh
Experimental works, including one-man and one-woman shows, works in progress, and new-vaudeville shows can be seen here.
Mill Valley Film Festival
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.
New Pickle Circus
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.
Noise Pop Festival
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.)
ODC/Dance
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.
Old First Concerts
The well-respected Friday-evening and Sunday-afternoon series includes chamber music, choral works, vocal soloists, new music, and jazz.
Opera Plaza Cinemas
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.
Pacific Film Archive
Affiliated with the University of California, this theater screens a comprehensive mix of classics, American, and foreign films.
Paramount Theatre
The spectacular art-deco Paramount screens a few vintage flicks (The Sting, Casablanca) every month and presents live events.
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
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.
Pocket Opera
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.
Roxie Theater
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.
San Francisco CAAMFest
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.
San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest
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.
San Francisco IndieFest & DocFest
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.
San Francisco International Film Festival
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.
San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival
The world's oldest and largest festival honoring gay and lesbian films takes place at various venues for two weeks in late June.
San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival
Documentaries, feature films, and Bollywood movies are shown at this weeklong festival in November.
San Francisco Jazz Festival
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.
San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
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.
San Francisco Mime Troupe
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.
