Skip to main content

About Us

Since 1980, San Francisco-based non-profit City Arts & Lectures – a 501(c)(3) – has offered unique programs with leading figures in arts and ideas. Each year there are more than fifty lectures and onstage conversations – and a few surprise performances, film tributes, and concerts – with outstanding writers, critics, scientists, performing artists, and cultural figures from around the world. City Arts & Lectures offers the broadest perspectives about ideas and values, the creative process, and how we think about the world we live in.

City Arts & Lectures events are held in the historic Sydney Goldstein Theater (formerly Nourse) in San Francisco’s Performing Arts Center and online. Programs can be heard via edited and delayed broadcasts on more than 130 public radio stations across the country, co-produced with KQED 88.5 FM in San Francisco, as well as on our podcast.

Executive Directors
Kate Goldstein-Breyer
Holly Mulder-Wollan

Design & Communications Director
Alexandra Blackman

Board of Directors
Hilton Als, Stephen M. Best, Dave Eggers, Caterina Fake, Kristen Kadner, Julie Kim, Rachel Kushner, Alexis Madrigal, Samin Nosrat, Calvin Trillin, Sydney Goldstein In Memoriam, Tom Luddy In Memoriam, Susan Sontag In Memoriam

Bryan Stevenson and Jeffrey Toobin doing soundcheck onstage before a show

Photo by Roslyn Banish (2016)

Photo by Josh Blackman (2023)

Photo by Jason Henry (2023)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Cole Burchiel (2023)

Photo by Seth Golub (2016)