Theatre also plays an important role in cultural life in Arles with two venues :

• the Arles Theatre is resolutely turned toward contemporary creation such as dance, theatre or circus shows. Artistic quality and feeling are the major prerequisites.
  
  
• the Theatre de la Calade, was created by Henry Moati in 1978 in an old Roquette building known as the Grenier à Sel, which has two auditoriums with 80 and 200 seats respectively. In this space of wood, stone and soul situated on the banks of the Rhone River, the company has developped their four different objectives : creating, animating, teaching, diffusing. They create, rehearse and play their own shows, both in Arles and all over France. The theatre building is also open to other companies, either regional or from further away.

Other theatre associations present plays in Arles, and the Roman Theatre and Amphitheatre offer comic, musical or dramatic summer shows in their majestuous scenery.