St Lawrence Arts & Community Center

I love this little Portland venue. I have seen numerous local plays there. Some of the shows have been great, some have been. not so great… BUT, the venue is awesome. It’s VERY small. Maybe 200+ seats. You can hear and see from every seat. If you are super excited about seeing an act that is coming there, I strongly recommend getting tickets. Make sure you get there early, as most shows are seat yo self.
They have a bar with wine, beer, and snacks. There are also 5 or 6 restaurants in the vicinity that are great for pre-​show tapas or appetizers.
There is no parking lot, so it’s on street parking in the super popular «East End». Give yourself a lot of time for driving around and scoping out a spot.

I grew up in a city where beautiful, old churches were constantly demolished because of lack of attendance and need for parking lots. One after another, brick by brick, they were ripped apart, tearing down with them the historical significance and in a sense the culture of the founding mothers and fathers of that town. So, to me, the story of how the St. Lawrence Arts & Community Center came to me is beautiful… and a lesson for others in the city development spectrum of Maine to pay attention to.
Basically (the long and short of it according to their website is), the St. Lawrence Congregationalists built their church on Congress Street in 1854. By 1897, they needed a bigger space to accommodate their growing church body (and an enormous organ), so they relocated to what would become the space we know it today. The building would eventually fall into disrepair, but in an effort to rescue it, in 1979 it was listed as a national landmark with the National Register of Historic Places. Eventually it was no longer being used (or needed) as a church, sold off to private developers, sold again, then sold one more time in 1997 to the Friends of St. Lawrence church — a non-​profit with the goal of preserving the historic space.
To me, it’s lovely. Then again, I find charm in old churches regardless of the state they’re in. They all tell a story. I’ll admit that the foyer to get tickets/​drinks at St. Lawrence is a claustrophobic’s nightmare, but once your Allagash or Shipyard is in hand and you enter the actual theater, it’s hard to to fall a little in love. It’s very small, but from what I can tell there are no bad seats (which are also very physically comfortable) in the house. The stage was easy to see, the sound resonated perfectly, and the intimacy among the small theater felt more like a warm hug then an uncomfortable pair of too-​tight-​jeans.
If you have the opportunity to support this place — DO IT. We need more places like this, than we do enormous arenas named after inanimate objects.
Or, for that matter, parking lots.

I am constantly surprised by how often I meet someone who hasn’t been to the St. Lawrence. It seems as though I regularly find myself there, either hooting at the dancers in Vivid Motion’s Nutcracker Burlesque, crying to Elizabeth Peavey’s monologue about her mother, or looking out at a shadowy audience from the comfortable little stage in some level of dance-​appropriate state of undress.
Home to Good Theater and a wide array of music, dance, and theatrical performances, St. Larry’s (as I like to call it) is a fantastic venue to find intimate, good quality performance in Portland. The theater seats about 70 people on risers so everyone has a good view of the proscenium stage. The theater can also accommodate people in wheelchairs with a small lift. It has excellent sound and lighting courtesy of their talented tech crew. And, if you get hungry or thirsty, there are drinks and snacks available in the lobby before the show and during intermissions.
Nothing is more magical than walking up to the beautiful, historic stone church and pulling the heavy wooden door open to the theater, standing there with friendly and enthusiastic strangers while you all wait for house to open, and then settling in to your seat to watch a performance by your friends and neighbors. I simply love St. Larry’s, being able to enjoy the performance arts with a personal touch. Theater, dance, and music should be for everyone and this venue makes it so warm and accessible.