Things to Do in Phoenix, Arizona

Culture

Performing arts

The city has many performing arts venues, most of which are in and around downtown Phoenix or Scottsdale. The Phoenix Symphony Hall is home to the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, the Arizona Opera and Ballet Arizona.  The Arizona Opera company also has intimate performances at its new Arizona Opera Center, which opened in March 2013.  Another venue is the Orpheum Theatre, home to the Phoenix Opera.  Ballet Arizona, in addition to the Symphony Hall, also has performances at the Orpheum Theatre and the Dorrance Theater. Concerts also regularly make stops in the area. The largest downtown performing art venue is the Herberger Theater Center, which houses three performance spaces and is home to two resident companies, the Arizona Theatre Company and the Centre Dance Ensemble. Three other groups also use the facility: Valley Youth Theatre, iTheatre Collaborative and Actors Theater.

Concerts take place at Footprint Center and Comerica Theatre in downtown Phoenix, Ak-Chin Pavilion in Maryvale, Gila River Arena in Glendale, and Gammage Auditorium in Tempe (the last public building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright).  Several smaller theaters including Trunk Space, the Mesa Arts Center, the Crescent Ballroom, Celebrity Theatre, and Modified Arts support regular independent musical and theater performances. Music can also be seen in some of the venues usually reserved for sports, such as the Wells Fargo Arena and State Farm Stadium.

Several television series have been set in Phoenix, including Alice (1976–85), the 2000s paranormal drama Medium, the 1960–61 syndicated crime drama The Brothers Brannagan, and The New Dick Van Dyke Show from 1971 to 1974.

Museums

The valley has dozens of museums. They include the Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona Capitol Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona Military Museum, Hall of Flame Fire Museum, Phoenix Police Museum, the Pueblo Grande Museum Archaeological Park, Children's Museum of Phoenix, Arizona Science Center, and the Heard Museum. In 2010, the Musical Instrument Museum opened their doors, featuring the biggest musical instrument collection in the world.  In 2015 the Children's Museum of Phoenix was recognized as one of the top three children's museums in the United States.

Designed by Alden B. Dow, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Phoenix Art Museum was constructed in a single year, opening in November 1959.  The Phoenix Art Museum has the southwest's largest collection of visual art, containing more than 17,000 works of contemporary and modern art from around the world.  Interactive exhibits can be found in nearby Peoria's Challenger Space Center, where individuals learn about space, renewable energies, and meet astronauts.

The Heard Museum has over 130,000 sq ft (12,000 m²) of gallery, classroom and performance space. Some of the museum's signature exhibits include a full Navajo hogan, the Mareen Allen Nichols Collection of 260 pieces of contemporary jewelry, the Barry Goldwater Collection of 437 historic Hopi kachinadolls, and an exhibit on the 19th-century boarding school experiences of Native Americans. The Heard Museum attracts about 250,000 visitors a year. 

Fine arts

The downtown Phoenix art scene has developed in the past decade. The Artlink organization and the galleries downtown have launched a First Fridaycross-Phoenix gallery opening.  In April 2009, artist Janet Echelman inaugurated her monumental sculpture, Her Secret Is Patience, a civic icon suspended above the new Phoenix Civic Space Park, a two-city-block park in the middle of downtown. This netted sculpture makes the invisible patterns of desert wind visible. During the day, the 100-foot (30 m)-tall sculpture hovers high above heads, treetops, and buildings, creating what the artist calls "shadow drawings", which she says are inspired by Phoenix's cloud shadows. At night, the illumination changes color gradually through the seasons. Author Prof. Patrick Frank writes of the sculpture that "...this unique visual delight will forever mark the city of Phoenix just as the Eiffel Tower marks Paris."

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