Philadelphia was the cultural capital of the colonies and rivaled New York as a theatrical center during the 1800s. In 1984, Philadelphia had five fully developed resident theaters, ranking 3rd in the nation after New York and California. A number of regional and summer stock theaters are scattered throughout the state, the most noteworthy being in Bucks County, Lancaster, and Pittsburgh.
Pennsylvania's most significant contribution to the performing arts has come through music. One of America's first important songwriters, Stephen Foster, grew up in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Symphony, which began performing in 1896, first achieved prominence under Victor Herbert. Temporarily disbanded in 1910, the symphony was revived under Fritz Reiner in 1927; subsequent music directors have included William Steinberg and Andre Previn. Even more illustrious has been the career of the Philadelphia Orchestra, founded in 1900. Among this orchestra's best-known permanent conductors have been Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy, both of whom recorded extensively.
An important dance company, the Pennsylvania Ballet, is based in Philadelphia, which also has the Curtis Institute of Music, founded in 1924. Pittsburgh also hosts a ballet company. The National Choreographic Center was established in the mid-1980s in Carlisle in conjunction with the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet School. Opera companies include the Pennsylvania Opera Theater, Pittsburgh Opera, and Opera Company of Philadelphia.
Expressions '80, a minorities arts festival in Philadelphia that attracted artists from a six-state area, was the first regional festival of its kind in the Northeast. The Pennsylvania Writers Collective, an initiative program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, supports the work of the state's creative writers. The American Poetry Review, published out of Philadelphia, has become one of the nation's premier poetry journals. Favorite tourist sites featuring the arts include the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and Fallingwater, a home created by Frank Lloyd Wright in Bear Run.
In 2003, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and other Pennsylvania arts organizations received grants totaling $2,753,400 from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Pennsylvania Humanities Council was established in 1973. In 2000, the National Endowment for the Humanities contributed $3,692,993 for 45 state programs. The state and various private sources also provided funding for arts programs. Pennsylvania has an estimated 3,000 arts associations and 75 local arts groups, with over 400,000 contributing artists.