The Performing Arts

Austin has its own symphony, theater, ballet, lyric opera, and modern dance companies, but it also draws national and international talent to town. Much of the action, local and imported, takes place at the University of Texas's Performing Arts Center (PAC), but many of the performances will move to a new venue in the summer of 2008. A civic association promoting the performing arts has collected millions of dollars in donations and is busy at work building a new complex to be called the Long Center. It will hold a large concert hall, a theater, and other facilities. The building is located on the south side of Town Lake at Riverside Drive between South First and Lamar, and looks to be a striking piece of architecture.

Theater

The State Theater Company, 719 Congress Ave. (tel. 512/472-5143 or 512/472-7134; www.austintheatre.org), which performs at the beautiful old theater for which it is named, is Austin's most professional troupe, and their recent repertoire ran the gamut from Judith Ivey's Women on Fire to a dramatization of Orwell's 1984. Austin's oldest theater, incorporated in 1933, the Zachary Scott Theatre Center (tel. 512/476-0541 [box office] or 512/476-0594; www.zachscott.com), makes use of two adjacent venues at the edge of Zilker Park: the John E. Whisenhunt Arena at 1510 Toomey Rd., and the theater-in-the-round Kleburg at 1421 W. Riverside Dr.

Other theaters in town tend toward the smaller and, in some cases, more offbeat. Top players include the intimate Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St. (tel. 512/479-PLAY [box office] or 512/479-7530; www.hydeparktheatre.org), focused on Austin writers, actors, and designers. It's the venue for the Short Fringe performances at the annual 5-week-long FronteraFest, the largest fringe theater/performance art festival in the Southwest. At the thriving theater department at St. Edward's University, the Mary Moody Northen Theatre, 3001 S. Congress Ave. (tel. 512/448-8484 [box office] or 512/448-8483; www.stedwards.edu/hum/thtr/mmnt.html), gets support for its performances from a variety of professional directors and guest actors. It's tough to typecast One World Theatre, 7701 Bee Cave Rd. (tel. 512/329-6753; www.oneworldtheatre.org), where performers might range from Tangokinesis to Judy Collins, but you couldn't find a more appealing venue for them than this intimate (300-seat) Tuscan castle-style theater in countrified Westlake Hills.

East Austin is the home of many experimental performance and film venues. The most established is The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd. (tel. 512/478-LAVA; www.vortexrep.org), home to the Vortex Repertory Company. You can tell by the titles alone -- The Dark Poet's Binge, say, or St. Enid and the Black Hand -- that you're well into the fringe. Others to look out for are The Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo St. (tel. 512/567-7833; www.rudemechs.com), and The Blue Theater, 916 Springdale Rd. (tel. 512/927-1118; www.bluetheater.org). The latter hosts such annual events as the full-length FronteraFest performances and Flicker Fest film screenings.

A Venerable Venue -- The Marx Brothers, Sarah Bernhardt, Helen Hayes, and Katharine Hepburn all entertained at the Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress Ave. (tel. 512/472-5470 [box office] or 512/472-2901; www.austintheatre.org), a former vaudeville house, which opened as the Majestic Theatre in 1915 and functioned as a movie palace for 50 years. Now restored to its original glory, the Paramount hosts a diverse roster of nationally touring plays, visiting celebrity performers and lecturers, film festivals and series, and local dance and theatrical productions.

Dance

The two dozen professional dancers of Ballet Austin (tel. 512/476-2163 [box office] or 512/476-9051; www.balletaustin.org), leap and bound in such classics as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, as well as in the more avant-garde pieces of the trendsetting Director's Choice series, which pairs the work of various contemporary choreographers with the music of popular local Latin musicians and singer-songwriters. When in town, the troupe performs at Bass Concert Hall or the Paramount Theatre. An aptly high-tech ensemble for plugged-in Austin, Sharir + Bustamante Dance Works, 3724 Jefferson St., Suite 201 (tel. 512/236-1296 or 512/477-6060 [box office]; www.sbdanceworks.org), stretches the boundaries of dance toward virtual reality by including video projections and computer-generated images in its choreography. Most of the Austin performances are held at UT's Performing Arts Center, but there are also site-specific environmental pieces. In addition, Dance Umbrella, 3710 Cedar St. (tel. 512/450-0456; www.danceumbrella.com), sponsors and presents performances by national and international touring acts.

Free Entertainment

Starting in late April or early May, the city sponsors 10 weeks of free Wednesday night concerts at Waterloo Park. Concerts range from rock and reggae to Latin and country-and-western. In addition, there are Sunday concerts at dusk at Wooldridge Park (Ninth St. and Guadalupe), featuring the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Call tel. 512/442-2263 for current schedules of these two series and of the free Zilker Park Jazz Festival in September. Every other Wednesday night from June through August, Blues on the Green is held at Zilker Park Rock Island, 2100 Barton Springs Rd. Contact sponsor KGSR (tel. 512/390-KGSR; www.kgsr.com) for information. Some 75,000 people turn out to cheer the 1812 Overture and the fireworks at the Austin Symphony's Fourth of July Concert at the northeast triangle of Zilker Park (tel. 512/476-6064; www.austinsymphony.org).

From mid-July through late August, the Beverly F. Sheffield Zilker Hillside Theater, across from Barton Springs Pool, hosts a summer musical (Zilker Theater Productions, tel. 512/479-9491; www.zilker.org). Started in the late 1950s, this is the longest-running series of its type in the United States. The summer Austin Shakespeare Festival is often held at the theater, too; for up-to-date information, call tel. 512/454-BARD or log on to www.austinshakespeare.org. More than 5,000 people can perch on the theater's grassy knoll to watch performances. Seating is first-come, first-served, so bring your own blanket or lawn chairs.