During the late 1800s and early 1900s, New Jersey towns, especially Atlantic City and Newark, were tryout centers for shows bound for Broadway. The New Jersey Theater Group, a service organization for nonprofit professional theaters, was established in 1978; 20 theaters—including the Tony Award–winning McCarter Theater at Princeton and Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn—are members of the Theater Group.
Around the turn of the century, Ft. Lee was the motion picture capital of the world. Most of the best-known "silents"—including the first, The Great Train Robbery, and episodes of The Perils of Pauline —were shot there, and in its heyday the state film industry supported 21 companies and 7 studios. New Jersey's early preeminence in cinema, an era that ended with the rise of Hollywood, stemmed partly from the fact that the first motion picture system was developed by Thomas Edison at Menlo Park in the late 1880s. The state created the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission in 1977; in the next six years, production companies spent $57 million in the state. Notable productions during this period included two Woody Allen pictures, Broadway Danny Rose and The Purple Rose of Cairo .
The state's long history of support for classical music dates at least to 1796, when William Dunlap of Perth Amboy wrote the libretto for The Archers, the first American opera to be commercially produced. There are over 60 professional and community orchestras throughout the state. The state's leading orchestra is the New Jersey Symphony, which makes its home in the new New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark; there are other symphony orchestras in Plainfield and Trenton. The New Jersey State Opera performs in Newark's Symphony Hall, while the Opera Festival of New Jersey makes its home in Lawrenceville. Noteworthy dance companies include the American Repertory Ballet, New Jersey Ballet, and the Nai N. Chen Dance Company.
The jazz clubs of northern New Jersey and the seaside rock clubs in Asbury Park have helped launch the careers of many local performers. Famous stars perform in the casinos and hotels of Atlantic City.
In 2003, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and other New Jersey arts organizations received grants totaling $1,210,700 from the National Endowment for the Arts. State and private sources also contributed funding to New Jersey's arts programs; the state offered arts education programs to approximately 25,000 schoolchildren. The New Jersey Council for the Humanities was founded in 1973. In 2000, the National Endowment for the Humanities contributed $2,212,614 to 43 state programs.