Photo: Matthew D. Wilson (LtPowers), CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Geva, the city's premiere professional theater company, hosts a variety of productions on its two stages, housed in a converted armory! The yearly production of A Christmas Carol is a popular family tradition. Cafe on site. Discounts are available for students and seniors.
Geva Theatre Center is a regional, not-for-profit, professional theatre company based in Rochester, New York. It is housed in an 1868 building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, located in Rochester at 75 Woodbury Boulevard near High Falls. The Center has full seasons of programming, in addition to discussions based on plays and staged readings, and community outreach.
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GLG
GLG has twelve high-end gaming PCs and three console couches in their gaming lounge, not to mention some great views of the city from high atop the former Xerox Tower.
This downtown children's museum, the only one in the world with a specific focus on play, is the place to visit if you have kids from 1-12. You can easily spend a whole day here, or visit a couple of times to enjoy everything. This museum focuses on learning through play and features tons of interactive exhibits, including some focused on well-known themes like Sesame Street. The kid-sized Wegmans supermarket is always a must-do. One nice feature is that most exhibits have information for adults to read (such as on how fairy tales have changed with the times) while the kids do things like climb on a pirate ship. Older visitors (those who can remember the 1980s) may also enjoy the classic arcade cabinets in the eGameRevolution exhibit. The Strong is also home to the National Toy Hall of Fame and the World Video Game Hall of Fame. The museum's Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden costs $6 extra and has a limited number of timed tickets available each day.
Nestled inside a cloverleaf onramp, in the shadow of the Frederick Douglass – Susan B. Anthony Bridge, the ROC City Skatepark finally opened in 2020 after more than 20 years of dreaming and over 12 years of actual planning and construction. The half-acre (2,000 sq m) park is designed for all types of wheeled sports from BMX to skateboarding to scooters, and the city hopes it serves as a big tourism draw for enthusiasts.
The former Xerox Auditorium is adjacent to what used to be Xerox's world headquarters. Xerox Tower is now Innovation Square, and the auditorium—once used for board meetings and the like—is now a beautiful and intimate performance venue with very good acoustics. It seats 700 but feels like 300.
Manhattan Square
This urban park near the Strong Museum features a unique concrete amphitheater with a distinctive metal superstructural sculpture, some play equipment, and a public outdoor skating rink that (in warmer months) converts to a reflecting pool with fountains. It's a major gathering space for Rochesterians and hosts the ROC Holiday Village every December.
There are some other bars and restaurants around that have a handful of board games for patrons to borrow, but it's safe to say no place has as huge a collection as Dice Versa, with over 300 games stacked on their shelves. True, you have to pay a cover charge to play games, but (during the week) you can game all day if you want (Friday and Saturday there's a 3-hour limit). The food (sliders, mac and cheese, flatbreads, and apps) is tasty and it's easy to eat way too much of it during a long gaming session. Their drink menu is also inventive and fun; try the Potion Shop, which lets you roll a 20-sided die to have fate choose the contents of your shot glass.