Orlando City Guide - Culture

There is a small but thriving arts centre in Orlando, the majority of which is centred on the downtown area. The Orlando Ballet (tel: (407) 426 1733; website: www.orlandoballet.org) is Central Florida's only professional resident ballet company and one of the few ballet companies of its size performing the full-length classical ballets, mostly at the downtown Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre (but in 2009 many arts organisations will move to the new Orlando Centroplex).

Orlando Shakespeare Theater (tel: (407) 447 1700; website: www.orlandoshakes.org) offers classical productions year round at the John & Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center on Princeton Street in the Loch Haven Cultural Park. The latter also houses the Mennello Museum of American Art (tel: (407) 246 4278; website: www.mennellomuseum.com) and family-friendly Orlando Science Center (tel: (407) 514 2000; website: www.osc.org).

The Bob Carr Performing Art Centre, 401 West Livingston Street (tel: (407) 849 2001; website: www.orlandovenues.net) is the premier venue for theatre, ballet and opera, while Orlando Repertory Theatre, 1001 East Princeton Street (tel: (407) 896 7365; website: www.orlandorep.com), is a professional company that works in partnership with University of Central Florida to stage family-appropriate classics and riffs on kids' literature. There's the regular main stage season, an ‘American Classics' series that honors US playwrights, and a youth academy for aspiring young actors.

Winter Park, just to the north, is home to two fine museums - The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, 445 North Park Avenue (tel: (407) 645 5311; website: www.morsemuseum.org), which features the world's finest collection of work by Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Cornell Fine Art Museum, 1000 Holt Avenue (tel: (407) 646 2526; website: www.rollins.edu/cfam).

For cinemas, Downtown Disney (AMC 24, Downtown Disney, tel: (407) 298 4488), Universal's CityWalk (Universal Cineplex, CityWalk, Universal Orlando Resort, tel: (407) 354 5998), Pointe Orlando (Muvico Pointe 21, Pointe Orlando, tel: (407) 926 6850) and Festival Bay (Cinemark 20 at Festival Bay, tel: (407) 352 1042) all boast multiscreen cineplexes, while the non-profit alternative cinema Enzian Theater, 1300 South Orlando Avenue (tel: (407) 629 1088; website: www.enzian.org), in the suburb of Maitland, is home to the Florida Film Festival each April.