Events at this location

Start your morning with a workout and incredible live music in a soaring 19th century Ballroom

Join Mechanics’ Hall and Club Pilates for a truly special Pilates event.

Move through a beautiful mat Pilates class while a live pianist performs on a baby grand, creating an atmosphere that is both energizing and serene.

Surrounded by the historic charm of this iconic space, you’ll enjoy natural light pouring into the grand ballroom as music fills the room and guides your movement. This unique experience blends the strength and flow of Pilates with the elegance of live performance.

Have you ever worked out to live music? Now is your chance!

Whether you’re a seasoned Pilates lover or simply looking for a memorable wellness experience, this class offers the perfect combination of movement, music, and atmosphere.

LEARN MORE & GET TICKETS HERE

$20 member, $25 general admission

A monthly gathering in our library to discuss books and big ideas. This May, we’re reading “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett.

The Mechanics’ Hall Book Discussion group meets to chat about books by exceptional thinkers and artists.

Everyone is welcome, and ongoing attendance is not required. The group is free for Mechanics’ Hall Members.

Curious about the group but not a Mechanics’ Hall member? You’re invited to stop by! If you like what you hear, consider becoming a member.

LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE

Yeehaw! Community icon Robyn Nicole (yep, of Queer Makers’ Market fame) is taking over the Hall with three drop-in line-dancing sessions. You’re absolutely invited for zero pressure, maximum silliness, and a sweet little reset with new friends.

This line dance class is geared toward absolute beginners in line dance, people who haven’t danced since they were six, and people who are nervous to dance now that they are adults. Participants need no prior dance education or special attire, just an open mind and a willingness to be gentle with themselves while they learn something new. This class is open to all ages and abilities (listener discretion may be advised based on some music choices).

LEARN MORE & GET TICKETS HERE

$7 member, $10 general admission

No one turned away for lack of funds at the door

Dancer/choreographer/community organizer Jay Carlon and composer/sound artist/vocalist Micaela Tobin bring people together in their iterative performance practice known as TALAGA. This intimate and relaxed gathering combines performance, conversation, and food in the spirit of sharing and learning about unique cultural perspectives and lived experiences. Each iteration of TALAGA is tailored to our present moment and is a platform for the collaborating artists’ research and respective practices of experimental movement, music, and decolonization. The most recent recipient of the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation’s Choreographer Award, Carlon’s work facilitates shared healing and the exploration of post-colonial identity, ancestry, and the complex queer and Filipinx experience in relationship to site and space.

LEARN MORE & GET TICKETS HERE

All Roads Portland is a two-day festival & showcase of national and Maine music talent across multiple independent venues in and around Portland’s Arts District. All Roads’ mission is to provide local artists the opportunity to connect with first-class touring talent on their home turf, while celebrating the independent stages of Portland, Maine.

LEARN MORE HERE

All Roads Portland is a two-day festival & showcase of national and Maine music talent across multiple independent venues in and around Portland’s Arts District. All Roads’ mission is to provide local artists the opportunity to connect with first-class touring talent on their home turf, while celebrating the independent stages of Portland, Maine.

LEARN MORE HERE

POETS, MUSICIANS, ARTISTS, CRAFTERS, JAMMERS, DANCERS, MAKERS, INNOVATORS OF ALL AGES & CREATIVE VARIATIONS . . .

Join us for an evening of experimenting & on-the-spot creation. Share what you’re working on or about your creative process and be in sweet community with inspiring local creatives.

Hosted By Marco Soulo + Signature MiMi

3rd Wednesdays of the month, 6:00 – 9:00 PM. No registration required,

Learn more and sign up for an open mic slot here.

Montreal-based artist Thanya Iyer is an enigmatic songwriter whose sparkling, experimental pop music embraces mindfulness, aesthetic beauty, and the interconnectedness of all things.

For this special show in the Mechanics’ Hall Library, she brings songs from her new album TIDE/TIED and new unreleased works in a genre-bending performance that is a sonic embrace of transformation and collective care.

With washes of jazz-inflected pop and ensemble ambience courtesy of Pompey’s adventurous multi-instrumentalism on guitar and clarinet, and the celestial harp, flute, and voice of Emilie Kahn, Thanya Iyer builds a layered musical world that Pitchfork described as “a lucid daydream that’s constantly melting at its edges and hailed by the New York Times as “a haven of wellness.”

Portland-based artist Kafari will open the evening with a short set. Kafari explores the worlds of piano, beats, and rhythm bones with ethereal music that brings you to a dream state.

LEARN MORE & GET TICKETS HERE

$20 member, $25 general admission, no one turned away for lack of funds at the door. $5 surcharge on the day of the show.

Join the Trans Poetics Archive at Mechanics’ Hall for the launch of For Someone You Know, their Second Annual Poetry Anthology. The evening is hosted by the fabulous Aquarius Funkk, featuring ’26 Contest Winner, Lou Hoecker, and Keynote Speaker, Arisa White.

Arisa White is the Colby College Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing, and a member of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance’s community advisory board.

LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE

Friday, May 29 at 6:00 PM (doors 5:30 PM). $7 for Mechanics’ Hall Members, $10 for general admission, no one turned away for lack of funds at the door.

Join little house dance for their 7th Creation Lab! Each Lab brings a different energy and a unique cohort of movers and artists together. Through daily class, improvisation labs, repertoire, and movement prompts, spend the week engaging in different components of the little house creative process and arrive somewhere new. Over the course of the week, participants build a movement score together and offer an open studio sharing on the final day that is open to the public.

LEARN MORE & SIGN UP HERE

Yeehaw! Community icon Robyn Nicole (yep, of Queer Makers’ Market fame) is taking over the Hall with three drop-in line-dancing sessions. You’re absolutely invited for zero pressure, maximum silliness, and a sweet little reset with new friends.

This line dance class is geared toward absolute beginners in line dance, people who haven’t danced since they were six, and people who are nervous to dance now that they are adults. Participants need no prior dance education or special attire, just an open mind and a willingness to be gentle with themselves while they learn something new. This class is open to all ages and abilities (listener discretion may be advised based on some music choices).

LEARN MORE & GET TICKETS HERE

$7 member, $10 general admission

No one turned away for lack of funds at the door

MWPA, Longfellow Books & Mechanics’ Hall host Sarah Braunstein & Nick Fuller Googins in conversation.

“Prescient and idiosyncratic stories about the cost and joys of caretaking from a “sharp-witted, ravishing” (New York Times) writer. These stunning stories, steeped in black humor, startle and dismay. Unexpected encounters confine and define the lives of strangers, while parents and partners navigate blended families and modern love: An older woman tells her waitress that she once left a newborn on church steps. A motel housekeeper makes a radical proposal to a guest. A teenager grapples with atheism, grief and eBay. A mother’s world is disrupted and recharged after a neighborhood man gives her young daughter a telescope.

Throughout this bracing collection, we see parents doing their not-so-great best, breakups going wrong, obsessions getting out of hand—and yet moments of healing too, often where we least expect them. Strange, heartfelt, and wryly funny, Sarah Braunstein’s stories ask us to confront the ways we try to make sense of our lives—and what happens when we escape from these preconceptions.

LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE

Tuesday, June 9 at 7:00 PM (doors 6:30 PM). Free to the public. Please register in advance as space is limited.

Choro Louco performs the enormously appealing Brazilian music genre known as choro. The band was formed in 2013 by a group of accomplished musicians who have all established themselves as virtuosos in other genres – ranging from classical music and jazz, to Celtic, klezmer, and Middle Eastern music. They love sharing their enthusiasm for this wonderful music genre.

The band members are Carl Dimow (guitar, flute, bass flute), Nicole Rabata (flute), David Newsam (7-string guitar, mandolin) and Eric LaPerna (pandeiro, bongos).

Choro originated in Brazil in the early 20th century. Its beautiful melodies, complex harmonies, and syncopated rhythms combine elements from many styles of music: European folk and classical; ragtime; jazz; Latin; and African music – creating a mix that is uniquely Brazilian and has wide appeal. Choro is experiencing a resurgence of popularity, both in Brazil and with bands throughout the world.

LEARN MORE & GET TICKETS HERE

$20 member, $25 general admission, no one turned away for lack of funds at the door

Split My Soul is a riveting dance-theater production that explores the conflict and integration between seven complex characters: The People’s Jester, Lady Martyre, Fizzy Head, Mystery Man, Twisted Mistress, The Kid, and Your Inevitable Death.

These characters work with and against one another, exposing their inner stories and perils as they navigate locally crafted set pieces such as stairs, textural walls, and a plethora of ropes.

Set to an original score by renowned composer Michael Wall, Split My Soul provides a cathartic visual and sonic experience to unpack mental health challenges and scenarios.

Steil believes the theatrical embodiment of internal characters and archetypes can help heal relationships, build empathy for the attributes and tendencies of ourselves and others, and shift perspectives towards the people and stories of our lives.

LEARN MORE & GET TICKETS HERE

$20 member, $25 general admission, $35 reserved seating. There is a $5 surcharge on the day of the show. 

POETS, MUSICIANS, ARTISTS, CRAFTERS, JAMMERS, DANCERS, MAKERS, INNOVATORS OF ALL AGES & CREATIVE VARIATIONS . . .

Join us for an evening of experimenting & on-the-spot creation. Share what you’re working on or about your creative process and be in sweet community with inspiring local creatives.

Hosted By Marco Soulo + Signature MiMi

3rd Wednesdays of the month, 6:00 – 9:00 PM. No registration required,

Learn more and sign up for an open mic slot here.

Join us for a tender, soul-stirring, and luminous concert in the intimate Mechanics’ Hall library

Suzie Assam is a Maine-based vocalist and songwriter who has spent the last two decades crafting and performing original music across central and southern Maine. Her work blends folk intimacy with modern soul, carried by a warm, expressive voice and a gift for deeply personal, lived-in storytelling: in the vein of Olivia Dean and Lizzy McAlpine. Her early influences include artists like Jeff Buckley, Ms. Lauryn Hill, and Nina Simone.

This performance features a collection of unreleased songs (her “letters home”) written over the years for and about herself, her family, and the people she loves. Rooted in reflection and emotional honesty, these songs explore the tension between joy and grief, darkness and light, holding space for more than one truth at a time.

Joining Suzie are Sam Smith (percussion) and Nick Santos (bass), helping bring depth and movement to an intimate, heart-centered set.

LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE

$20 member, $25 general admission