Showplace Performance Centre Competitors

The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, located on 17 acres overlooking the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., is America's living memorial to President Kennedy as well as the nation's busiest arts facility. The Center, which opened on September 8, 1971, continues its efforts to fulfill President Kennedy's vision by producing and presenting an unmatched variety of theater and musicals, dance and ballet, orchestral, chamber, jazz, popular, world, and folk music, and multimedia performances for all ages.

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) began in 1986 as just a grand plan, a belief voiced by then-Governor Thomas H. Kean that New Jersey deserved its own world-class performing arts center. Ultimately it was decided there was no better place for a Jersey arts center to take root than in Downtown Newark; a building that would not only host the world’s greatest performers, but also act as the catalyst for revitalizing the state’s largest city. Since its opening season in 1997, NJPAC has attracted nearly 9 million patrons, plus 1.6 million children and their families. The Arts Center's array of more than 500 unique events each season, held on and off campus, serves New Jersey’s rich diversity of nationalities and ethnicities. Performers who have appeared in the acoustically superb, 2,800-seat Prudential Hall include Joshua Bell, El Gran Combo, Aretha Franklin, Audra McDonald, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Bonnie Raitt, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Stephen Colbert, Jerry Seinfeld, and Earth, Wind & Fire, among many others. Each year, NJPAC's Arts Education Department, one of the largest in the country, engages almost 80,000 public school children via arts learning initiatives in schools, in NJPAC conservatory, and on its stages. The Arts Center has established itself as a home for broadcast by networks including BET, HBO, Comedy Central, PBS and NBC. NJPAC provides forums for convening New Jersey’s citizenry to discuss significant issues of the day and “symbolizes Newark’s cultural renaissance” (Forbes magazine).

Overture Center for the Arts is a stunning architectural landmark in the heart of Madison’s thriving cultural arts district. In addition to housing nine resident organizations and presenting more than 200 performances, art exhibitions, and educational and community events each year, Overture offers a variety of venues for performances, corporate meetings, conventions, trade shows, weddings, banquets, and receptions. Our mission is to enrich the lives of individuals and the community by creating, encouraging and catalyzing extraordinary experiences.