arts and culture
Here you will find numerous ways to enlighten, entertain, and enliven your vacation.
Leave the mundane behind
Visitors will enjoy discovering the wide variety of culture, history, and live entertainment offerings that can be found, year-round.
Explore our more offbeat performance venues like Hackmatack Playhouse in Berwick, set on an old family farm. Enjoy the cool ocean breezes of Old Orchard Beach’s Seaside Pavilion, or take a seat inside for the best of musical theater at the iconic Ogunquit Playhouse. Enjoy an intimate performance at the Vinegar Hill Music Theatre, or attend an event at the Sanford Performing Arts Center or the year-round historic City Theater in Biddeford.
Museums, Galleries, and Historic Destinations
Learn about the nation’s early naval heritage at the Kittery Historical & Naval Museum. Kennebunkport’s Seashore Trolley Museum, the oldest and largest of its kind, offers an antique vehicle collection speaking to the nation’s epic technological leaps forward in public transportation. Experience the only museum in Maine devoted exclusively to the exhibition, preservation, and interpretation of American Art, the Ogunquit Museum of Art welcomes visitors from May through October.
The area’s many galleries offer regular art walks, exhibitions, and workshops by artists and craftspeople. Art shows feature handmade wares in traditional, contemporary, and country styles. Make time to browse original artwork in various media and formats.
Step into the past at the Brick Store Museum in Kennebunk, its locally-kilned exterior unchanged from the 19th century; Old York with its Old Gaol; or the Counting House and the Sarah Orne Jewett House in South Berwick. Catch up on more recent American history as you tour the First Families Museum in Kennebunkport.
Look closer, and you will find America’s past in the churches, factories, and private homes across The Maine Beaches—some date to the mid-17th and early 18th century. There are more than a dozen nationally registered or state-designated historic districts here. These areas include prestigious seaside estates like the Arundel Summer Colony Historic District.
Downtowns are filled with reminders of Maine’s hard-working industrial past, ranging from the Biddeford Saco Mills Historic District to rural villages such as Alfred Historic District. Each shows the many ways our communities are connected to the successive generations of the Maine story. Today they stand preserved as a welcome reminder of their contributions to our collective American history and culture.