Timeless Stages
New England has a vibrant theater scene, made all the more enthralling by performance venues that have welcomed generation after generation of audiences. There’s something downright transporting about watching the talent of today on the stages of yesterday, bringing fresh works to life alongside beloved classics. And far from being clustered only in Boston’s Theater District, New England’s timeless stages can be found in a wide range of scenic locales that lure vacationers and visiting Broadway actors alike. If you’re fortunate enough to time your visit to include a show, it may just be your vacation’s dramatic highlight.
MASSACHUSETTS
Summer stock theater is not a New England invention, but it has become nearly synonymous with this region—and no more so than at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis. When it was founded in 1927 in a former 19th-century meetinghouse, the playhouse offered Broadway actors a venue where they could work during the slow summer season, and stars like Bette Davis and Henry Fonda eagerly took up the offer. Now the longest-running professional summer theater in the United States, the playhouse still stages a full schedule of shows between June and September, with a particular emphasis on comedies. Cape Cod vacationers will also want to check what’s on at the Priscilla Beach Theatre in nearby Plymouth. Opened in 1937, it is the oldest barn theater in America.
Decidedly not a barn nor a former meetinghouse is Williams College’s stately neoclassical Adams Memorial Theatre, which has hosted the world-famous Williamstown Theatre Festival since 1955. The festival’s founders passed up airy comedies in favor of serious works by the likes of Anton Chekhov and Tom Stoppard, and the festival continues to mount summer productions of both classic and new plays from June through August. Several shows that premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, including The Bridges of Madison County and The Elephant Man, later made it to Broadway.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Theater lovers have felt at home in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region for more than a century. Opened in 1914, the Venetian-themed Colonial Theatre in Laconia originally held live performances before it was converted to a movie house. Closed for nearly two decades, it was painstakingly restored and reopened in 2021 and—true to its legacy—now presents a mix of live theater, comedy, and movies. A bit farther north, in Tamworth, The Barnstormers still assembles a professional troupe each summer, just as it has since 1931, when it was co-founded by President Grover Cleveland’s youngest son. In the former Main Street shop that has been the ensemble’s permanent home since 1935, you’ll see top talent from around the country performing in a heartwarming play or perhaps a musical, and you’ll experience a sense of connection only possible in a theater with fewer than 300 seats.
CONNECTICUT
There may be no more beautiful setting for tapping your toes to a musical than the Goodspeed Opera House, an elegant Victorian landmark on the banks of the Connecticut River in East Haddam. After it was built in 1876, operas were initially staged in the impressive six-story venue, but since being saved from demolition in 1959 it’s been a mainstay for the presentation of Broadway classics and emerging works. The nearby Ivoryton Playhouse has far more humble roots: Built in 1911, it was originally a recreation hall for local factory workers and later converted into a summer theater by a Broadway director who had retreated to neighboring Essex to get away from work. Alums of the Ivoryton stage are a who’s who of Hollywood’s golden age, including Marlon Brando, Jayne Mansfield, and Groucho Marx. Current casts may be less star-studded, but the annual lineup of shows is a dynamic mix of newer musicals and dramas.
Two of the most popular plays in Broadway history, Oklahoma! and Pygmalion, had their start in a humble barn theater on the Connecticut shore. The Westport Country Playhouse began in 1931 as a testing ground for potential Broadway plays, switched to summer stock performances, and—after a revival sparked by renowned actress Joanne Woodward, a local resident—began offering year-round performances in the 2000s.
MAINE
Two of Maine’s historic theaters prove that the Pine Tree State has had a long and lively arts scene to go along with its vast natural beauty. The “Little Theater Movement” of the 1920s and ’30s, intended to bring live theater to small communities far from the bright lights of Broadway, gave birth to the Ogunquit Playhouse, founded in a former garage in the coastal town of Ogunquit. Musicals are the playhouse’s focus, from shows celebrating the songs of artists like Cher or Carole King to a kids’ series inspired by Disney movies and classic children’s books. The State Theatre in Portland, meanwhile, is primarily a live-music venue now, but its mixed Moorish and Art Deco design hint at its history, which began with vaudeville performances in 1929 before movies and live theater were added over the decades.
VERMONT
Many of New England’s historic theaters got their start entertaining summer visitors. By contrast, when the Weston Theater Company was founded in 1937, the idea was to help residents of Weston, a small town in the Green Mountains, get through the long Vermont winters. In addition to its historic Weston Playhouse, a white-columned Greek Revival building set right on the village green, the company uses its modern Walker Farm venue for performances including many original plays.
An Art Deco landmark dating back to 1938, the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro screens first-run movies and hosts film festivals, concerts, and comedy shows. Another urban theater, The Flynn in Burlington, is a 1930 vaudeville house that’s now the state’s top performing arts center. See a Broadway touring show here, or a headliner from the worlds of music and comedy.
RHODE ISLAND
Spending the day at the beach and the evening at the theater—with perhaps dinner and a drink in between—has been the formula for attracting patrons to Theatre by the Sea in Wakefield since 1933. Shows are still staged in the original barn each summer. If you’re in Newport any time of year, check the calendar of shows at the Gilded Age’s Newport Opera House, a downtown fixture. Since 1886, it has hosted everything from plays to boxing matches to suffragette rallies; more recently, it has evolved from an art house theater to a full-fledged performing arts center. Likewise, Providence-based Trinity Repertory Company’s historic Lederer Theater Center has a year-round slate of offerings onstage in two intimate theaters. The annual production of A Christmas Carol is a cherished holiday tradition in Rhode Island.
