Penn Live Arts Blog / By / SanyaGrace Kunicki

Spring 2026 Highlights

America Unfinished Penn Live Arts Commission World Premieres

We couldn’t be more pleased with how the second half of our 25/26 season unfolded. Closing out 2025, we were honored to be named WHYY’s favorite venue. Multimedia journalist Tonya Pendleton shared, “The staff is lovely, the seats are comfy and the acoustics are great.” Pendleton also selected drummer Justin Faulkner as her favorite musician of the year, and he was most recently seen on our stage in the fall with the Branford Marsalis Quartet.

Stepping into 2026, we continued the celebration of our country’s 250th anniversary Read more...

The Power of the Right Internship

Sylvia Erdely (C ’27) and Chenyao Liu (C ’27) joined us at a recent board meeting to give insights into their internship experiences. Both students were supported by our Arts & Entertainment Career Connections program, which offers stipend-supported summer internships with companies across the arts industries, and we are overjoyed that they had such positive, transformational experiences. Read more...

Fall 2025 Highlights

Accelerator Program America Unfinished Dance Jazz ListenHear Music Penn Live Arts Commission Philadelphia Premieres Theatre World Premieres

Thank you for joining us for a wonderful start to our 25/26 season: America Unfinished. As we head into the new year, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on some of the highlights from the past few months. Between outstanding artists making their Philadelphia debut, new works taking the stage, impactful engagement with audiences and construction progress on our new venues, it’s already been such a rewarding season. Read more...

Program Spotlight: Student Discovery

Children's Festival

When Micah Sell was eight years old, he attended a RUBBERBAND performance through our Student Discovery program and, a few hours later, enthusiastically informed his mother that he wanted to join the company someday.

“I think the physicality of the RUBBERBAND show is what attracted me to it all those years ago,” Sell reflected recently. “I remember being fascinated by their non-balletic vocabulary; it made me realize that there don't have to be rules to dance. At its core, it is just about the movement.” Read more...