Performing arts in Louisville, Kentucky

Performing arts

The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...

community in Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

is currently undergoing a bit of a renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. The Kentucky Center

The Kentucky Center

The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, located in Louisville, is a major performing arts center in Kentucky.The Kentucky Center also hosts artworks by Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, John Chamberlain, Jean Dubuffet and others....

, dedicated in 1983, located in the downtown hotel and entertainment district, is a premiere performing arts center. It features a variety of plays and concerts, and is the performance home of the Louisville Ballet

Louisville Ballet

The Louisville Ballet is a ballet school and company based in Louisville, Kentucky and is the official state ballet of The Commonwealth of Kentucky. More than 100,000 people attend the company's productions annually of which most are accompanied by the Louisville Orchestra...

, Louisville Orchestra

Louisville Orchestra

The Louisville Orchestra is the primary orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky and has been called the cornerstone of the Louisville arts scene. It was founded in 1937 by Robert Whitney and Charles Farnsley, Mayor of Louisville...

, Broadway Across America - Louisville, Music Theatre Louisville, Stage One, KentuckyShow! and the Kentucky Opera

Kentucky Opera

The Kentucky Opera is the state opera of Kentucky, located in Louisville. The operas are accompanied by the Louisville Orchestra. Founded in 1952 by Moritz von Bomhard, it is the twelfth oldest opera company in the United States and has a more than $2 million budget. The Kentucky Opera is an...

, which is the twelfth oldest opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The Center also manages the historic W. L. Lyons Brown Theatre, located at 315 W. Broadway. The Brown was opened in 1925 and is patterned after New York's acclaimed Music Box Theatre.

Actors Theatre of Louisville

Actors Theatre of Louisville

Actors Theatre of Louisville is a performing arts theater located in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. It was founded in 1964 by Louisville native Ewel Cornett, local producer Richard Block and actor Ken Jenkins of Scrubs fame, and was designated the "State Theater of Kentucky" in 1974. It is run as a...

is another performing arts center

Performing arts center

Performing arts center, often abbreviated PAC, is used to refer to* A multi-use performance space that is intended for use by various types of the performing arts, including dance, music and theatre....

that has become the cornerstone of the revitalization of Louisville's Main Street. As the centerpiece of the city's urban cultural district, Actors Theatre has significant economic impact on a vital downtown life. Highly acclaimed for its artistic programming and business acumen, Actors Theatre hosts the Humana Festival of New American Plays

Humana Festival of New American Plays

Humana Festival of New American Plays is an internationally renowned festival that celebrates the contemporary American playwright. Produced annually in Louisville, Kentucky by Actors Theatre of Louisville, this prestigious event showcases new theatrical works and draws producers, critics,...

each Spring. It also presents approximately six hundred performances of about thirty productions during its year-round season, composed of a diverse array of contemporary and classical fare. It has attracted one of the largest per capita subscription audiences in the country and logs an annual attendance of over 200,000.

The Louisville Palace

The Louisville Palace

The Louisville Palace is a theatre, in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, located in the city's theater district, on the east side of Fourth Street, between Broadway and Chestnut Street. It has a seating capacity of 2,700 people and is owned by Live Nation...

, one of the city's venues for the Louisville Orchestra, is an elegant, ornate theatre in downtown Louisville

Downtown Louisville

Downtown Louisville is the largest central business district in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the urban hub of the Louisville, Kentucky Metropolitan Area. Its boundaries are the Ohio River to the north, Hancock Street to the east, York and Jacob Streets to the south, and 9th Street to the west...

's so-called theatre district. In addition to orchestra performances, the theatre also features an array of popular movie

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s, old and new, as well as concerts by popular artists. Located nearby is the Kentucky Theater

Kentucky Theater

The Kentucky Theater was a theater and performing arts center at 651 S. 4th St., located in the theatre district of downtown Louisville, Kentucky in the United States of America.Built in 1921, the building served for sixty years as a movie house...

, which was built in 1921 and operated for 60 years as a movie house, but was closed and was almost demolished in 1986. Ultimately it was saved by local arts advocates, and the newly renovated Kentucky Theater opened its doors in 2000 and has become a vibrant community art

Community art

Community Art could be loosely defined as a way of creating art in which professional artists collaborate more or less intensively with people who don't normally actively engage in the arts. Community arts, also sometimes known as "dialogical art", "community-engaged" or "community-based art,"...

s center and art film

Art film

An art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...

house.

Iroquois Park

Iroquois Park

Iroquois Park is a 739 acre municipal park in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed Louisville's Cherokee Park and Shawnee Park, at what were then the edges of the city. Located south of downtown, Iroquois Park was promoted as...

is the home of the renovated Iroquois Amphitheater which hosts a variety of musical concerts in a partially covered outdoor setting. Up through 2008, it also hosted the musical productions of Music Theatre Louisville

Music Theatre Louisville

Music Theatre Louisville is a non-profit organization in Louisville, Kentucky, dedicated to producing, presenting, and developing diverse and affordable entertainment. Up through 2008, the company staged several shows during the summer at Iroquois Amphitheater in Iroquois Park...

, which moved to The Kentucky Center in 2009.

The Jewish Community Center of Louisville is home to Center Stage, whose members have performed some of Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

's best musicals. The shows range from new, hip, modern music all the way to Rodgers and Hammerstein

Rodgers and Hammerstein

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...

classics. In the 2008 Season, they are introducing straight plays to their stage again with the first part of Angels in America
Angels in America
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winning play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös.-Characters:...

.

Louisville is home to a thriving indie music scene with bands such as the widely known Love Jones

Love Jones (band)

Love Jones is an American band, formed in Louisville, Kentucky in spring 1990 by Ben Daughtrey and Barry Thomas , with Chris Hawpe , Stuart Johnson and Jonathan Palmer . According to Entertainment Weekly, Love Jones was the leader of the "cocktail nation" groups of the early 1990s...

, Flaw, Slint

Slint

Slint was an American rock band consisting of Brian McMahan , David Pajo , Britt Walford , Todd Brashear and Ethan Buckler...

, My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket is an American rock band from Louisville, Kentucky.The band consists of Jim James , Tom 'Two-Tone Tommy' Blankenship , Patrick Hallahan , Carl Broemel , and Bo Koster .-History:My Morning Jacket was...

, Wax Fang, VHS or Beta

VHS or Beta

VHS or Beta is a band originally from Louisville, Kentucky, now based in Brooklyn, NY, that combines elements of rock, house and disco . Their self-released debut EP Le Funk found some success on the charts, but the band became better known in the wake of the 2004 album Night on Fire...

and The Villebillies

The Villebillies

Villebillies [VILL-BILL-EEZ] is an American band from Louisville, Kentucky.The band released their self-titled debut record on September 26, 2006 through Universal Motown Records. Villebillies have toured extensively across the U.S...

. It is also home to the post-grunge

Post-grunge

Post-grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged in the mid-1990s as a derivative of grunge, using the sounds and aesthetic of grunge, but with a more commercially acceptable tone...

band Days of the New

Days of the New

Days of the New is an American alternative rock band from Louisville, Kentucky, formed in 1995. The band consists of vocalist/guitarist Travis Meeks and a variety of supporting musicians...

.

On Fourth Street in downtown is the brand new Fourth Street Live!

Fourth Street Live!

Fourth Street Live! is a entertainment and retail complex located on 4th Street, between Liberty and Muhammad Ali Boulevard, in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky. It is owned and was developed by the Cordish Company; it was designed by Louisville architects, Bravura Corporation...

outdoor entertainment complex, which features a wide variety of restaurant

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

s, stores and nightclub

Nightclub

A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

s. The complex sponsors many free concert

Concert

A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...

s, as does the popular Waterfront Park

Louisville Waterfront Park

Louisville Waterfront Park is a municipal park adjacent to the downtown area of Louisville, Kentucky and the Ohio River. Specifically, it is adjacent to Louisville's wharf and Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere, which are situated to the west of the park....

.

The large performing arts community played a role in the relocation of ZFX Inc, the second largest theatrical flying special effect

Special effect

The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....

s company in the world, from Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

to Louisville in 2006.

See also