The South Bay has four real performing arts houses, a symphony that plays for free, a ballet company that fills a college auditorium every December, and the largest Hawaiian music event on the American mainland. None of it is in a downtown arts complex. It is spread across Redondo Beach, Torrance, Rolling Hills Estates and San Pedro, and most of it is within twenty minutes of the beach cities.
What are the performing arts venues in the South Bay?
Four venues carry the programming, and they are deliberately different sizes.
| Venue | City | Size | Address |
|---|---|---|---|
| Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center | North Redondo Beach | The largest local house | 1935 Manhattan Beach Boulevard |
| James R. Armstrong Theatre | Torrance | 502 seats | 3330 Civic Center Drive North, in the Torrance Cultural Arts Center |
| Norris Theatre | Rolling Hills Estates | 450 seats | 27570 Norris Center Drive, at the Palos Verdes Performing Arts Center |
| Marsee Auditorium | Torrance | The largest capacity in the area | El Camino College, 16007 Crenshaw Boulevard |
| Warner Grand Theatre | San Pedro | 1931 art deco movie palace | Downtown San Pedro |
The point worth noticing: 450 and 502 seats are small rooms. At the Norris or the Armstrong you are never far from the stage, which changes what touring artists and companies are willing to book and what the experience is like from the audience.
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Why is the Performing Arts Center in North Redondo?
Because that is where the land was. The Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center sits at 1935 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, inland from the coast in North Redondo Beach, and its location tells you something about how the city developed. The coastal strip was built out and expensive long before anyone was planning a civic auditorium. North Redondo had room.
The practical consequence for anyone attending is a good one. Parking is straightforward, which is not true of anything near the water, and the venue is reachable from Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Torrance in about the same amount of time. Our North Redondo Beach page covers the wider area.
What is the Slack Key Festival?
The Southern California Slack Key Festival is the biggest showcase of Hawaiian ki ho’alu music on the American mainland, and it happens in Redondo Beach. It has run since 2008, and the 2026 edition was the nineteenth.
It takes place each January at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, on the Sunday before Martin Luther King Jr Day, presented by Kala Koa Entertainment. The program brings Grammy-winning slack key guitarists from the islands, hula dancers, guest performers and an Island Marketplace into a single afternoon and evening.
If you only go to one cultural event in the South Bay calendar, this is a strong candidate. It is the kind of thing that would be a headline festival in most cities and is, here, a January Sunday in North Redondo that locals buy tickets for every year.
Where do you see ballet and dance?
South Bay Ballet stages The Nutcracker each December at the Marsee Auditorium at El Camino College in Torrance. It is the area’s holiday tradition, the company is long established, and the Marsee seats more than any of the smaller houses, which is why it is the venue that can absorb Nutcracker-sized audiences.
Beyond the December run, dance in the South Bay happens through studios, school programs and the touring dance that comes through the Norris and the Armstrong. The Palos Verdes Performing Arts Center runs a broad season at the Norris that includes dance alongside theatre and music.
Where do you hear orchestral and classical music?
The Peninsula Symphony is the notable one, and the notable thing about it is the price. It performs free orchestral concerts, with a stated mission of reaching the South Bay and Palos Verdes population broadly rather than a ticketed subscription audience. Concerts are staged in the auditorium at Redondo Union High School. It also runs a youth orchestra.
A free professional-standard orchestral concert is not a common thing anywhere, and most people who live here have never been to one. It is worth putting on the calendar once.
What else is on through the year?
- Summer concerts in the parks. Free outdoor series across several South Bay cities through summer, covered on our concerts in the park page.
- The Warner Grand Theatre, San Pedro. Film, music and theatre in a 1931 art deco house. More on the San Pedro arts district on our South Bay art scene page.
- Touring music at the big rooms. The Kia Forum, Intuit Dome and SoFi Stadium are fifteen to twenty five minutes north, covered on our nightlife page.
- Live music in bars and restaurants. Saint Rocke, long the anchor venue in Hermosa Beach, has closed, so live music now moves between bars and restaurants rather than sitting in one room. Hermosa Pier Plaza and the Redondo harbor carry most of it.
- Carrie and the Prom, Hermosa Beach, Friday, October 9. A 50th-anniversary screening of Carrie (1976) in the Hermosa Beach Community Theatre, with a live-band prom at 7pm in the gym where the film’s prom scene was shot and the movie at 9pm. City of Hermosa Beach
- Candlelight concerts around Los Angeles. Fever’s Candlelight series stages concerts lit by hundreds of candles at venues across the city. This winter’s run includes a tribute to Bad Bunny at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, November 22 to January 24, with tickets from about $48. Candlelight in Los Angeles
Season programming, venue capacities and festival dates change year to year. Details were verified against venue and organizer sources in September 2026. Confirm current schedules and ticketing with the venue or company before planning around a date.
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Where do you see visual art?
The anchor is the Manhattan Beach Art Center at 1560 Manhattan Beach Boulevard. The city runs it, admission is free, and the gallery shows locally, nationally and internationally known artists alongside emerging ones. Students from Manhattan Beach and the wider South Bay exhibit there as well, and the center accepts exhibition proposals from artists.
Gallery hours are Wednesday and Thursday from 10am to 9pm and Friday through Sunday from 10am to 5pm. It is closed Monday and Tuesday. The center also runs ceramics classes for every age and skill level and a glaze lab where you can finish a custom piece. The number is 310-802-5440.
Who pays for the public art around Manhattan Beach?
Development does, through a dedicated fund that does not draw on the general fund. Manhattan Beach adopted its Public Arts Fund ordinance, municipal code chapter 10.90, effective December 18, 2002. It applies a 1 percent fee to residential projects of four or more units and to commercial and industrial projects with a building valuation above $500,000. It also reaches remodels, interior or exterior, of commercial and industrial buildings and of residential buildings of four or more units, once the remodel valuation passes $250,000. The fee is paid when the building permit is issued.
It is worth being precise about what this does not cover, because it is easy to misread as a tax on any remodel. A single-family remodel does not trigger it. The residential threshold starts at four units.
What the fund pays for is visible across the city. The Sculpture Garden is a temporary exhibition that rotates every other year. There are bench sculptures set into the Strand alcoves, a utility box beautification program that turns traffic control boxes into painted work, a 9/11 memorial, and Light Gate, the centennial art project. Artists are chosen by a peer panel of artists, arts professionals and community members, recommended by the Cultural Arts Commission and approved by the City Council. The city publishes a public art story map that pins each piece with a short description. Art in Public Places, City of Manhattan Beach.
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