Every September the arts calendar in Vancouver fills back up. Theater companies post a whole season at once, the symphony and the ballet put dates on sale months ahead, and the museums swap in exhibitions that run through winter. Most of it is already up. I went through what’s opening near us this fall, when each one runs, and what it costs to go.

Magenta Theater

📍 1108 Main St., Vancouver, WA 98660

🗓️ Sept. 25 – Oct. 11, 2026

🎟️ $28 plus fees, $30.20 all in

Right now Magenta has “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors” on stage, a fast comic send-up of the Bram Stoker story where five actors cover more than a dozen roles and change costumes at a sprint. It runs about 90 minutes with one 15-minute intermission, so it’s an easy weeknight. The company owns its own 140-seat house in the Main Street arts district downtown, which means good sightlines from just about anywhere in the room. Street parking out front is closest, and they have free lot arrangements with Chase Bank on Broadway and the O.O. Howard House if you print your ticket confirmation and leave it on the dash.

Second Story Gallery

📍 Camas Public Library, 625 N.E. Fourth Ave., Camas, WA 98607

🗓️ Sept. 4 – Oct. 17, 2026

🎟️ Free

“Between Page & Panel” fills the gallery with original artwork from fifteen Pacific Northwest children’s book illustrators, the actual paintings and drawings behind books your kids probably already own. Coordinated by local illustrator Lauren Akazawa Mendez, it spans picture books through graphic novels, and there’s an artist panel on Oct. 2 at 5 p.m. where the illustrators talk through how a sketch becomes a published page. The gallery sits upstairs at the Camas library, so you can walk through in fifteen minutes or spend an hour. If you miss this one, “Sticks and Stones” takes the space in November and December.

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra USA

📍 Skyview Concert Hall, 1300 N.W. 139th St., Vancouver, WA

🗓️ Sept. 26, 2026 – May 23, 2027

🎟️ Season packages from $202 for five concerts

The full 2026/27 slate is out, and it’s a big one: opening night paired Grieg’s piano concerto with Beethoven’s “Pastoral,” Verdi’s Requiem arrives Nov. 7 and 8 with the Portland Symphonic Choir, Holiday Pops lands in December, and the season closes with Mahler’s “Resurrection” in May. This is the orchestra’s 47th season and Salvador Brotons’ 35th on the podium, which is a long run for any conductor anywhere. Alongside the symphonic programs there’s a chamber series, plus Back to the Movies, where musicians play live under silent films. Every symphonic program gets two performances at Skyview Concert Hall, Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m., so if one weekend doesn’t work the other usually does.

Journey Theater

📍 Fort Vancouver High School, Vancouver, WA

🗓️ Nov. 6 – 14, 2026

🎟️ $22 adults, $20 youth and seniors, plus a booking fee

Journey’s fall production is “Newsies,” the Alan Menken musical about the 1899 newsboys’ strike, with “Elf Jr.” following it into the holidays. The casts are students ages 8 to 18, and the dance numbers in this one are genuinely demanding, which is part of why they put it on a big stage. One thing worth knowing: Journey doesn’t have its own theater and books school auditoriums show by show, so the venue changes every production. Check which school before you drive, because the fall shows and the winter shows are rarely in the same building.

Columbia Dance

📍 Skyview Concert Hall, 1300 N.W. 139th St., Vancouver, WA

🗓️ Dec. 18 – 20, 2026

This is the “Nutcracker” rebuilt around our own history. The party scene happens in the Chief Factor’s dining room at 1840s Fort Vancouver, and the dream sequence trades in sugarplums for beavers, fur trappers, dancing wapato plants and Oregon Trail children arriving by covered wagon. Columbia Dance has been working with historians, local tribes and Fort Vancouver staff on it since 2019, with sets by scenic artist Thyra Hartshorn and costumes by Christine Darch. Tickets go on sale Oct. 15, and December weekends fill fast, so put a reminder on your phone. The company stages it at Skyview Concert Hall, the same room the symphony plays.

Clark County Historical Museum

📍 1511 Main St., Vancouver, WA 98660

🗓️ Ongoing, Tuesday through Saturday

🎟️ $5, $4 seniors and students, $3 ages 6-18, free for 5 and under

The museum rotates its galleries rather than running a season, and three exhibits are up right now: “Echoes of Fort Vancouver” on how the fur trade shaped the county, “America 250” on the local moments that made us, and a show marking 80 years of the NAACP’s Vancouver branch. It also holds the Brautigan Library, a collection of nearly 400 unpublished manuscripts by everyday writers, which is one of the odder things in the county and worth seeing on its own. The building is the 1909 Carnegie Library, so the space is half the visit. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and they stay open First Fridays until 8 p.m. if you’re already downtown for the art walk.

Most of these are on sale now. Pick one, put the date in your calendar, and buy the ticket while you’re thinking about it.

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