Arts, Culture & Museums in Ogunquit, Maine
Ogunquit isn’t a big town—that’s the way we like it—but it comes well endowed with arts and culture: backdropped, infused, and informed by the Beautiful Place by the Sea’s coastal setting.
An Ogunquit.com vacation at the Gorges Grant Hotel, the Milestone, or the Juniper Hill Inn means you’re positioned right in the heart of town with its multiple cultural attractions ready to hand! Let’s take a look at some of the standout destinations in and around our fair seaside village.
Museums
We’re getting ever closer to the start of the esteemed Ogunquit Museum of American Art’s 2018 season: The doors open on May 1st. The museum—the only one in Maine whose focus is exclusively American art—harbors a collection better than 2,000 works strong. Exponents of Ogunquit’s homegrown art colonies such as Edward Betts and Charles Woodbury come well represented. Each year, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art also hosts a stimulating series of temporary exhibitions; the lineup for 2018 should be revealed soon!
Local history takes center stage, meanwhile, at the Ogunquit Heritage Museum, which includes some fascinating artifacts and exhibits from across the eras. Its digs themselves are a piece of history: the circa-1780 residence of Captain James Winn. And then there’s the Ogunquit Fire Co. Fire Museum, open 24 hours and showcasing a vintage steam pumper fire engine among its installations.
Other excellent museums lie within easy reach of Ogunquit in nearby towns, including the Historical Society of Wells and Ogunquit’s Historic Meetinghouse Museum in Wells, which includes themed historical displays dedicated to both communities: the People & Places Exhibit, Work-Day Exhibit, Service & Sacrifice Exhibit, and others. More regional history awaits at the Brick Store Museum in Kennebunk, the Counting House Museum in South Berwick, the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, and the outdoor living-history Strawbery Banke Museum (correctly spelled, mind you!) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The Ogunquit Playhouse
A local fixture since the 1930s, the Ogunquit Playhouse is one of the best-known surviving summer theaters of New England. Its season kicks off May 16th with Smokey Joe’s Café, a reboot of the long-running Broadway show celebrating Leiber and Stoller classics. Other productions for the 2018 Ogunquit Playhouse season include Oklahoma! (June 13th through July 7th), An American in Paris (July 11ththrough August 4th), Grumpy Old Men: The Musical (August 8th through September 1st), and Jersey Boys (September 5th through October 28th).
Art Galleries
And don’t forget about Ogunquit’s famously rich concentration of art galleries, spread from downtown to Perkins Cove!