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The high-tech boom created an enthusiastic and philanthropic audience for Seattle's arts community, which continues to grow. The gorgeous Benaroya Hall is a national benchmark for acoustic design. Its main tenant is the Seattle Symphony. At the Seattle Center, the ethereal Marion Oliver McCaw Hall combines Northwest hues and hanging screens in colorful light shows accompanying performances by the Seattle Opera and the Pacific Northwest Ballet.
Although the city's music scene has lost some of its shine after Portland became the go-to city for indie rock, music is still a main form of entertainment here. This very literate city also supports a full calendar of readings, lectures, and writing workshops.
The Seattle International Film Festival gets a lot of attention, but the city also hosts numerous smaller festivals throughout the year. The most popular include STIFF (Seattle's True Independent Film Festival; www.trueindependent.org) in June; the Children's Film Festival (www.childrensfilmfestivalseattle.nwfilmforum.org/), held at the Northwest Film Forum in January; and the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (www.threedollarbillcinema.org) in October.
Even if you don't plan on seeing anything here, this Asian fantasia is worth a peek—it's one of the most beautiful venues in the world. The 5th Avenue Theatre opened in 1926 as a silent-movie house and vaudeville stage, complete with a giant pipe organ and ushers who dressed as cowboys and pirates. Today it has its own theater company, which stages lavish productions October through May. At other times it hosts concerts, lectures, and films.
Beloved by locals for its humorous, ground-breaking, and unique choices, Seattle Public Theater brings just a handful of shows each year to an intimate stage. This tiny company puts on performances worth scheduling a day around.
Developed by Community Roots Housing, 12th Avenue Arts is designed to keep the arts in the neighborhood. Two black-box theaters host shows from various local troupes, including the excellent Strawberry Theatre Workshop and Washington Ensemble Theatre.
Dedicated to launching exciting works by emerging dramatists, ACT Contemporary Theatre has four staging areas, including a theater-in-the-round and an intimate downstairs space for small shows. In the 2025–2026 season, ACT and Seattle Shakespeare Company came together as Union Arts Center with contemporary spins on classic stories.
This 432-seat auditorium at Seattle Center is run by the Cornish College of the Arts as a site for music and theater productions, primarily by students and faculty, as well as arts-related lectures. It presents an opportunity to see inexpensive—sometimes free—performances in a beautiful theater built for the 1962 World's Fair.
Top-notch productions of new works and children's classics are are put on in two neighboring Seattle center theaters. After the show, actors come out to answer questions and explain how a play becomes a play.
From September through June, the Seattle Rep stages a mix of classics, recent plays that have won acclaim in New York, and work by regional playwrights. The Rep consistently puts on polished, sophisticated productions; you're likely to be engaged by what's playing, even if it's something you've never heard of.
