A former 1950s church at 1501 New Hampshire Street in Lawrence that served as the Lawrence Community Theatre for nearly 30 years, long reputed to be haunted by a presence that moves props, chills rooms, and once shoved an actress down a flight of stairs.
1501 New Hampshire St, Lawrence, KS 66044
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The building now operates as Vintage Church and hosts events and concerts. The Lawrence Community Theatre relocated to a new building in 2013. Exterior viewing only unless attending an event.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved urban street; standard building entrance
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1955 · Former Full Gospel Christian Assembly church · Home of the Lawrence Community Theatre, 1984-2013
The structure at 1501 New Hampshire Street in central Lawrence, Kansas, was built in the 1950s as a church for the Full Gospel Christian Assembly. According to the Lawrence Journal-World, a rift caused the congregation to dissolve, and in 1984 the Lawrence Community Theatre (LCT) purchased the building, converting the former sanctuary into a performing arts space.
For nearly three decades the building was central Lawrence's home for community theater, hosting LCT productions and serving generations of local actors, crew, and audiences. The conversion of a church into a theater preserved the building's high ceilings and open performance space, which made it well suited to staging.
In 2013 the Lawrence Community Theatre — by then operating as Theatre Lawrence — relocated to a new 35,000-square-foot, roughly $7 million facility at 4660 Bauer Farm Drive in west Lawrence, more than tripling its previous space. The original New Hampshire Street building was left behind but not abandoned.
Since approximately 2014, the building has been occupied by Vintage Church, which retained the full stage, sound system, and nearly 200 theater seats and has used the space to host concerts and community events. The building remains a recognizable downtown-adjacent landmark in Lawrence.
Sources
The Lawrence Community Theatre building's haunted reputation is well documented in regional sources. According to a 2010 Lawrence Journal-World report, cast and crew members over the years described cold spots, the sense of a vague presence in the room with them, lights that malfunctioned, and set pieces and props that seemed to move on their own. The most dramatic account, repeated across the Journal-World and Kansas Tourism's travelKS coverage, is of an actress who said she was shoved down a flight of stairs by someone who was not physically there.
The Journal-World article centered on a photograph taken in 1987 during a dress rehearsal for the production "Pack of Lies." The photographer, Jack Riegle, said the image — which appears to show a translucent female figure standing between two actors — was unaltered. LCT's longtime executive director Mary Doveton was quoted in the same coverage discussing the theater's reputation.
In the lead-up to a production of "Blithe Spirit," the Wichita Paranormal Research Society, a nonprofit group of investigators, was granted access to the building. According to founder Shane Elliott, the five-hour investigation using EMF detectors, thermal imaging, infrared cameras, and audio recorders produced unexplained EMF spikes and possible voice phenomena, though Elliott cautioned that only in roughly 10 to 15 percent of the group's investigations do they find something they cannot explain. The building's reputation has made it a recurring entry in haunted-Kansas roundups, including Kansas Tourism's official travelKS list. These reports are anecdotal, but they are consistently sourced to named witnesses in local journalism.
Notable Entities
The brick former church at 1501 New Hampshire Street housed the Lawrence Community Theatre for nearly three decades and remains a fixture of central Lawrence. It now operates as Vintage Church; the building can be viewed from the exterior, with interior access during scheduled events.
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