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Theperforming arts community inLouisville, Kentucky is undergoing arenaissance.The Kentucky Center, dedicated in 1983, located in the downtown hotel and entertainment district, is a premiere performing arts center.[1] It features a variety of plays and concerts, and is the performance home of theLouisville Ballet,Louisville Orchestra, Broadway Across America - Louisville, Music Theatre Louisville, Stage One, KentuckyShow! and theKentucky Opera, which is the twelfth oldestopera in theUnited States. The center also manages the historicW. L. Lyons Brown Theatre, which opened in 1925 and is patterned after New York's acclaimedMusic Box Theatre.
Actors Theatre of Louisville is anotherperforming arts center that has become the cornerstone of the revitalization ofLouisville's Main Street. As the centerpiece of the city's urban cultural district, Actors Theatre had significant economic impact on a vital downtown life.
ThePalace Theatre is an ornate theatre indowntown Louisville's theatre district. The theatre shows popular movies, old and new, as well as concerts by popular artists. Located nearby is theKentucky Theater, 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 acommunity arts center andart film house.
Iroquois Park is the home of the renovatedIroquois Amphitheater[2] which hosts a variety of musical concerts in a partially covered outdoor setting. Up through 2008, it also hosted the musical productions ofMusic Theatre Louisville, which moved to the Kentucky Center in 2009.
The Jewish Community Center of Louisville is home to Center Stage, whose members have performed some ofBroadway's best musicals. The shows range from new, hip, modern music all the way toRodgers and Hammerstein classics. In the 2008 Season, they are introducing straight plays to their stage again with the first part ofAngels in America.
Louisville is home to a thrivingindie music scene with bands such as the widely knownLove Jones,Flaw,Slint,My Morning Jacket,Wax Fang,VHS or Beta andThe Villebillies. It is also home to thepost-grunge bandDays of the New.
On Fourth Street in downtown is theFourth Street Live! outdoor entertainment complex, which features a wide variety ofrestaurants, stores andnightclubs. The complex sponsors many free concerts, as does the popularWaterfront Park.
The large performing arts community played a role in the relocation ofZFX Inc,[3] the second largest theatrical flyingspecial effects company in the world, fromLas Vegas to Louisville in 2006.
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