William Boughton, former music director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, founded Guilford Performing Arts Festival in January 2017 to produce a diverse, multi-day festival celebrating depth and breadth in American arts and culture. The very first Guilford Performing Arts Festival was put on later that year, presenting 44 live shows and workshops in 17 venues over four days in mid-October. The Guilford Performing Arts Festival was officially certified as a nonprofit with the Internal Revenue Service in July of 2018.

 

We strive to present high-quality live arts, spotlight diverse voices and artistic genres, commission and premiere new work, offer hands-on performing arts education and experience, and to use the arts to inspire and empower communities of need. Since 2017, we’ve commissioned eleven new works in music, dance and drama; put on 125 live shows; sponsored 42 workshops and master classes for more than 700 students of all ages; drawn some 12,000 people downtown and had an estimated $1.4 million positive impact on the local economy.

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In 2023, we underwent a rebranding as we sought to broaden our audience and bring arts and culture programming to the wider Shoreline community. Under the new name of GreenStage Guilford Live Arts, we continue to produce the Live Arts Festival biennially, with our next festival scheduled for August 10-17, 2025. We also present other events throughout the year, from open-mic nights to theatrical and storytelling performances to live concerts—typically in collaboration with other arts and cultural organizations.