Denver

Performing Arts

With a total seating capacity of 10,800, the Denver Performing Arts Complex, home to the Denver Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Ballet, and the Denver Theater Company, is the nation's second-largest performing arts complex, surpassed only by Lincoln Center in New York City. The center's facilities, which occupy four city blocks, include the Auditorium Theatre, Boettcher Concert Hall (the nation's first symphony-hall-in-the-round), and the Temple Buell Theater (a 2,800-seat venue for Broadway theater productions), as well as the world's first laboratory for the study of the human voice.

The Denver Center Theater Company, which is the leading repertory theater in the West, won the 1998 Tony award for best regional theater. The troupe produces 12 plays every season, on four different stages.

The Changing Scene Theater supports up-and-coming talent by producing only world premieres. Since 1968, some 300 productions have been staged at the 76-seat facility, and some have gone on to successful runs in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities. The theater has won grant support from such sources as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Besides the Performing Arts Complex, Denver has some 30 other theaters, as well as over 100 movie houses. The Lower Downtown area (LoDo) has become a thriving center for popular entertainment, including jazz, comedy, and dance.