Art. Music. Theater. Historical sites. Museums. Pro sports. Recreation. Night Clubs. Festivals. You name it and The Queen City has it--including Niagara Fall, that great thundering attraction 25 miles to the north!

The natural place to start on any Buffalo entertainment quest is the Theater District, a 20-block area of downtown thats jam-packed with the second-largest concentration of performing arts venues in the state, next to NYC, of course.

Home to the National Historic landmark Sheas Performing Arts Center, which opened in 1926, the Irish Classical Theatre Company, the Alleyway Theater complex, and the state-of-the-art Studio Arena, every type of theatrical performance is covered—from operetta to full Broadway productions, avant-garde drama to modern classics.

Campus Arts Focus

Another performing arts focus is the State University of New York at Buffalo campus in Amherst. The Center for the Arts is home to four theater venues: the 1,750-seat Mainstage, the only one of this size operating year-round in Western NY; the 400-seat Drama Theater, ideal for musicals; the 180-seat Black Box experimental space; and the 370-seat Katharine Cornell Theater, named after one of Buffalos leading ladies.

Summer in Delaware Park wouldn't be the same without the free Shakespeare in the Park performances echoing in the twilight. And a drive out past Cheektowaga transports visitors to the world of the Lancaster Opera House, an early-20th-century venue resounding with operettas, Broadway musicals, jazz and family entertainment.

Buffalos musical tastes can best be described as eclectic, ranging from the Buffalo Philharmonic, considered one of the best in the country and playing out of acoustically-perfect Kleinhans Music Hall, to blues and jazz, with native sons such as Grover Washington Jr., Bobby Millitello, and Spyro Gyra going on to national fame. In fact, Millitello gets to blow his own horn at the family-owned Tralfamadore Cafe, only one of dozens of pubs and clubs where jazz is part of the menu.

Taste for Visual Arts

For a town that has spent most of its existence doing heavy industrial work, Buffalo has more than its fair share of visual arts sensibilities. It starts with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, world-renowned for its collection of impressionistic and abstract works including Picasso, Van Gogh and Warhol. The Burchfield-Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College exhibits the works of watercolorist Charles E. Burchfield as well as regional artists.

Other important Buffalo galleries and exhibit halls include the Anderson Gallery, CEPA (Center for the Exploratory and Perceptual Art), Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, and the African American Culture Center, promoting and sponsoring African-American visual and performing arts (and home to the Paul Robeson Theatre). The recently opened Center for the Arts houses the University at Buffalo Art Gallery, a 5,000 sq ft exhibition space with emphasis on contemporary social art.

Further afield, Castellani Art Museum at Niagara University offers more than 3,000 19th and 20th century works as well as a Pre-Columbian artifact collection. The 200-acre Artpark in Lewiston, an all-inclusive facility for the whole family, featuring artists, craftsmen, and performers all summer long, attracts more than half a million visitors a year.

The Roycroft Campus

Of course, for the true arts and crafts believer, no trip to Buffalo is complete without a visit to the Roycroft Campus in East Aurora. Site of the crafts colony founded by Elbert Hubbard in the late 1800s, the campus today carries forth the original spirit with the Elbert Hubbard Roycroft Museum, Roycroft Shops, Roycroft Inn, and Roycroft Potters.

Through it all, Buffalo hasn't forgotten its railroad and steel past. The Iron Preservation Society of Lovejoy runs the Iron Island Museum in honor of the community named for the fact it was surrounded by railroad tracks. The Lackawanna Public Library plays host to the Steel Plant and Local History Museum with photos, exhibits and memorabilia from the days when steel was king.

If theaters, galleries, museums and architectural gems are the muscle and sinew of Buffalo culture, then the numerous festivals are most certainly its lifeblood. It starts with First Night Buffalo on New Years Eve, followed by a number of winter carnivals so that Buffalonians can thumb their noses at the snow. The snow melts just in time for the June Allentown Art Festival, a street event in that historic part of the city which draws more than 600,000 to the downtown area.

July brings the two-day A Taste of Buffalo along the Buffalo Place strip with music, arts and crafts, and the opportunity to sample food from the citys top restaurants. August means Lovejoys Iron Island Festival, with a celebration of this unique Buffalo neighborhood. This is followed by one of the most anticipated events on the cultural calendar—Curtain Up, the traditional September celebration of the new theater season.

Those are the biggies but the truth is you can probably find an event or festival just about every week of the year, celebrating the regions arts, food, the blues and jazz, as well as its Greek, Irish, Italian, African American, Polish and Scottish heritages.

Sizzling Night Life

If you can't wait for the festivals, there are plenty of hot night spots to keep you hopping. Buffalos original night life centered around the Elmwood Strip but the jumping jive these days is in the Chippewa Club Zone, which borders on the Theater District. Once the citys red light district, Chippewa now sizzles with live music and dance clubs to suit every taste.

At The Calumet Arts Club alone, you'll find a cool jazz club, hot tavern-saloon, and wild, steamy disco, all under the leadership of ex-Manhattanite Mark Goldman. La Luna, an upscale Latin club, features Saturday night dance lessons and the hottest salsa this side of Miami.

Perhaps the wildest club of all is Club Marcella, described as the best techno/trance/trip-hop place in the city—which leaves out the Saturday night drag queen shows. The Coliseum Entertainment Complex offers a high energy/progressive dance club, a disco/retro dance club, and a cigar bar under one roof. For less frenetic action, try the Crocodile Bar & Grill for single malt and 30 variations on the martini.

A visitor doesn't have to stay long to realize Buffalonians are passionate about their sports teams: be they the pro football Bills, NHL Sabres, triple-A baseball Bisons, soccer Blizzard or lacrosse Buffalo Bandits. This is the land of the Sunday afternoon tailgate party to root the Bills towards yet another shot at the Super Bowl. And the Saturday night deafening roar as super goalie Dominik Hashek stops one more for the Sabres.

As you can see, theres more to Niagara Frontier entertainment than the falls with their deafening roar. What you get is the complete package--with 75,000 gallons of water roaring over a 300-foot cliff each second as the icing!

Michael Mirolla