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Photo: Dwight Burdette, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Annual outdoor Shakespearean production since 2001, held on weekends in June. Roving performance requires the actors and audience to shift locations throughout the Arb from scene to scene. Previous productions have included A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and Love's Labour's Lost.
Shakespeare in the Arb is an annual event, presented in the open, in Nichols Arboretum. Nichols Arboretum is a 123-acre heavily wooded park, with large landscape lawns surrounded by woods, the Huron River, and steep hills. The plays are moving events, with both performers and audience moving from location to location within the park as the play progresses. At each location, a segment of the play is performed. The plays begin in the early evening, and are put on near the summer solstice, as no artificial lighting is used.
Most of the shops and restaurants line State, Liberty, and Main streets, with the quality becoming more upscale as you approach Main. The other popular student hangouts are along South University street. A few blocks north of downtown is the historic Kerrytown district, full of remodeled old homes and pleasant shopping.
A restored 1928 cinema, complete with two organs, one of them a vintage 1927 pipe organ. The theater shows mainly independent and foreign films, with special classic-film showings throughout the year. The organ is often played before performances, and during the Michigan Theater's special silent-film showings. The main auditorium also hosts other events throughout the year, particular musical groups and comedy shows, many fairly well-known.
An art-deco cinema from 1942, the State Theater works in conjunction with the Michigan Theater, and often plays films that have stopped showing at the Michigan.
A nonprofit, intimate music club with 400 seats, which usually hosts folk/rock performers. Private club liquor license (membership required for liquor purchase).
The Big House
Nicknamed the "Big House", the U-M stadium is the largest football stadium in America, with a seating capacity of 109,901. Home games are played in autumn on the well-known "Football Saturdays", when thousands of visitors clog the Ann Arbor streets to watch the Wolverines (or their opponents) play.
The Law School's "Quad", nationally renowned for its serene environment and beautiful Gothic-style architecture, is just south of the center of campus. Built in the early 20th century, the Quad consists of Hutchins Hall — the main law school building — the reading room and the U-shaped Lawyer's Club. The reading room (open to visitors) is an enormous cathedral-like building with stained glass windows featuring the colors of major universities in the US and around the world. The underground law library is naturally lit by enormous windowed shafts just beyond the Quad. The Quad is a grassy open space ringed by trees and seasonal flower beds. During the warmer seasons, students relax and toss the ball around, or sit and study in the Quad, making it an integral part of the Law School. Many locals consider the Law Quad to be the most beautiful part of Ann Arbor.