The Houston Theater District, a 17-block area in the heart of

Downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, Interstate 45 ...

, Texas, United States, is home to Houston's nine professional

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. P ...

organizations, the

Bayou Place Bayou Place is a 130,000 square foot entertainment complex that houses multiple theaters, bars, and restaurants located in Downtown Houston, Downtown Houston, Texas, Houston, Texas, United States. The complex was the former Albert Thomas conven ...

entertainment complex, restaurants, movies, plazas, and parks. More than two million people visit the Houston Theater District annually.

Rankings and recognition

The district, with 19,341 seats for live performances and 1,580 movie seats and is one of only five American cities with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: the Houston Grand Opera, the

Houston Symphony Orchestra The Houston Symphony is an American orchestra based in Houston, Texas. The orchestra is resident at the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts. History The first concert of what was to become the Houston Symphony took place on June 21, 1 ...

, the Houston Ballet, Theatre Under the Stars and

The Alley Theatre Alley Theatre is a Tony Award-winning theater (structure), theatre company in Houston, Texas. It is the oldest professional theatre company in Texas and the third oldest resident theatre in the United States. Alley Theatre productions have play ...

. Houston is recognized as an important city for contemporary

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

. The city is a prime stop for touring companies from Broadway; concerts and shows, from

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

Cirque du Soleil Cirque du Soleil (, ; ) is a Canadian entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus producer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, Montreal, Saint-Michel, Montreal, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 Jun ...

; and exhibitions for a variety of interests, ranging from the nation's largest quilting show to auto, boat, and home shows. The Houston Grand Opera is the only opera company in the U.S. to win a

Grammy The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...

, a Tony, and an

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award catego ...

. In 2007, Da Camera of Houston was awarded the CMAcclaim Award from Chamber Music America, for significant contribution to the cultural life of its region. The

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

winning Alley Theatre, founded in 1947, is Texas’ oldest professional theatre company. The Alley is the third oldest continually operating theatre in the United States. It is considered to be one of the foremost theatre companies in the United States outside of New York City and was a pioneering company of the regional theatre movement.

Venues

* Alley Theatre **Hubbard Stage **Neuhaus Stage * Hobby Center for the Performing Arts **Sarofim Hall **Zilkha Hall * Jones Hall *

* Wortham Theater Center ** Brown Theater ** Cullen Theater

Attractions

One of the several attractions in the district is the Bayou Place Entertainment Complex—a large multilevel building that is home to full-service restaurants, bars, live music,

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . Cue sports, a category of stic ...

, multiple theaters, and art house films. The Revention Music Center - Formerly Houston Bayou Music Center and the Verizon Wireless Theatre- stages a variety of live

concert A concert, often known informally as a gig or show, is a live performance of music in front of an audience. The performance may be carried by a single musician, in which case it is sometimes called a recital, or by a musical ensemble such as an ...

s, and the undance Theatre - Formerly the Angelika Theatrepresents the latest in art, foreign, and

independent film An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is film production, produced outside the Major film studios, major film studio system in addition to being produced and distributed by independ ...

History

Early venues in the district were the

Sam Houston Coliseum Sam Houston Coliseum was an indoor arena located in Houston, Texas. Early years Located at 801 Bagby Street in Downtown Houston, the Coliseum and Music Hall complex replaced the Sam Houston Hall, which was a wooden structure that had been erected ...

and the Houston Music Hall.

Parks

Jones Plaza is in the district; it will be renamed Lynn Wyatt Square For The Performing Arts after Lynn Wyatt, in 2019, gave $10 million for a renovation.

Transportation

The district is served by

METRORail METRORail is the light rail system in Houston, Texas (United States). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . METRORail ranks as the second most-traveled light rail system in the Southern United States and the List ...

light rail service at

Theater District Station Theater District is a light rail station in Houston, Texas on the METRORail system. It is the western terminus of the Green and Purple Purple is a color similar in appearance to violet light. In the RYB color model historically used in ...

References

External links

Theater District Houston

Alley Theatre

Da Camera of Houston

Theatre Port
{{Downtown Houston Geography of Houston Culture of Houston Economy of Houston Theatre in Texas Tourist attractions in Houston Downtown Houston

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...