The San Antonio Symphony is the city's only resident performing arts company of national stature, but smaller, less professional groups keep the local arts scene lively, and cultural organizations draw world-renowned artists. The city provides them with some unique venues -- everything from standout historic structures such as the Majestic, Empire, Arneson, and Sunken Garden theaters to the state-of-the-art AT&T Center.
Theater
Most of San Antonio's major shows turn up at the Majestic or Empire theaters, but several smaller theaters are of interest too. The Actors Theater of San Antonio, 1920 Fredericksburg Rd. (tel. 210/738-2872), uses local talent for its productions, which tend to be in the off-Broadway tradition. Their venue is the Woodlawn Theatre, opened as a movie house in 1945. At the King William district's Church Bistro & Theatre, 1150 S. Alamo (tel. 210/271-7791; www.churchbistroandtheatre.com), interactive comedies and murder mysteries take place on Friday and Saturday nights in the Green Room Dinner Theatre -- the former choir rooms of a converted 1912 church -- accompanied by buffet meals; upstairs, in the former sanctuary now called The Mainstage, there are lectures, concerts, musicals, comedies, and dramas, sans food. The community-based Josephine Theater, 339 W. Josephine St. (tel. 210/734-4646; www.josephinetheatre.org), puts on an average of five productions a year -- mostly musicals -- at the Art Deco-style Josephine Street Theater, only 5 minutes from downtown. Whether it's an original piece by a member of the company or a work by a guest artist, anything you see at the Jump-Start Performance Company, 108 Blue Star Arts Complex (1400 S. Alamo; tel. 210/227-JUMP; www.jump-start.org), is likely to push the social and political envelope. This is the place to find such big-name performance artists as Karen Finley or Holly Hughes who tour San Antonio. The only professional family theater in town, the popular Magik Theatre, Beethoven Hall, 420 S. Alamo in HemisFair Park (tel. 210/227-2751; www.magiktheatre.org), features a daytime series with light fare for ages 3 and older, and evening performances, recommended for those 6 and older, that may include weightier plays. About half the plays are adaptations of published scripts, while the other half are originals, created especially for the theater. San Antonio's first public theater, the San Pedro Playhouse, 800 W. Ashby (tel. 210/733-7258; www.sanpedroplayhouse.com), presents a wide range of plays in a neoclassical-style performance hall built in 1930. For information on other small theaters in San Antonio and links to many of those listed in this section, log on to the website of the San Antonio Theater Coalition at www.satheatre.com.
A Theater that Lives Up to Its Name -- Everyone from Jack Benny to Mae West played the Majestic, one of the last "atmospheric" theaters to be built in America. The stock market crashed 4 months after its June 1929 debut, and no one could afford to build such expensive showplaces afterward. Designed in baroque Moorish/Spanish revival style by John Eberson, this former vaudeville and film palace features an elaborate village above the sides of the stage and, overhead, a magnificent night sky dome, replete with twinkling stars and scudding clouds. Designated a National Historic Landmark, the Majestic affords a rare glimpse into a gilded era (yes, there's genuine gold leaf detailing).
