6 Best Performing Arts Venues in The Bay Area, California

This ultraquirky venue presents plays, musical acts, and comedy shows, along with visual and related arts. Top events include the Throckmorton Theatre Mountainfilm Festival (TTMF), the Sunday Sessions pro showcase, and a weekly show with satirist Mort Sahl. Stunning murals cover the theater's ceiling, and the foyer has on old-fashioned popcorn maker.

Fresh interpretations of classical works are a focus of this prominent orchestra, but commissioned new music and traditional pieces are also performed. BSO plays a handful of concerts each year, in Zellerbach Hall and other locations.

The festival takes place in mid-September in Old Mill Park, with live music, a kids' stage, and artisans selling crafts, jewelry, and art.

The well-regarded 11-day festival, held annually in early October, shows everything from features and documentaries to experimental works and draws crowds of more than 60,000. Films are shown at various locations around town.

Every May and June, locals tote overstuffed picnic baskets to the Mountain Theater to see the Mountain Play, an annual theater tradition that began in 1913. Past productions have included popular musicals like West Side Story, The Music Man, and My Fair Lady. A free shuttle runs from Manzanita Parking Lot at the junction of Highway 101 and Highway 1, just beyond the Mill Valley/Stinson Beach exit off Highway 101 and from Tamalpais High School.

This annual juried fine-arts show, held over Labor Day weekend, features more than 270 artists and attracts more than 30,000 people to the Sausalito waterfront. Blue & Gold Fleet ferries from San Francisco dock at the pier adjacent to the festival.