page_title: Auburn, Alabama
section_title: Arts, culture, and recreation
hierarchical_section_title: Auburn, Alabama / Arts, culture, and recreation
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a photograph of Felton Little Park in Auburn, Alabama.
context_page_description: Auburn is a city in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is the largest city in eastern Alabama with a 2019 population of 66,259. It is a principal city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area. The Auburn-Opelika, AL MSA with a population of 158,991, along with the Columbus, GA-AL MSA and Tuskegee, Alabama, comprises the greater Columbus-Auburn-Opelika, GA-AL CSA, a region home to 501,649 residents.
  Auburn is a historic college town and is the home of Auburn University. It is Alabama's fastest-growing metropolitan area and the nineteenth fastest-growing metro area in the United States since 1990. U.S. News ranked Auburn among its top ten list of best places to live in the United States for the year 2009. The city's unofficial nickname is "The Loveliest Village On The Plains," taken from a line in the poem The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith: "Sweet Auburn! Loveliest village of the plain..."
context_section_description: Auburn is the home to the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. The Smith Museum maintains a collection of primarily 19th- and 20th-century American and European art. The museum's exhibits include the Advancing American Art Collection, consisting of 36 works by mid-20th-century American artists including Jacob Lawrence, Ben Shahn, and Georgia O'Keeffe, a collection of engravings by naturalist John James Audubon, and works by Dalí, Chagall, Renoir, Picasso, and Matisse. Major sculptural works at the museum include a collection of Tibetan bronzes, Jean Woodham's Spinoff, and Dale Chihuly's Amber Luster Chandelier.
  Also in Auburn is the Telfair Peet Theatre, which performs a series of plays and musicals each year. The Auburn Community Orchestra, as well as the bands of Auburn University and the Auburn High School Honors Band perform dozens of yearly concerts, including a series of outdoor concerts in the fall at Kiesel Park. Other musical series in Auburn include that of the Auburn Knights Orchestra, a big band jazz orchestra, and the Sundilla Acoustic Concert Series. The theatre is rumoured to be haunted by a ghost named Sydney, who the theatre department appeases before every performance with an offering of orange and blue M&M's.
  Auburn is also home to Auburn Area Community Theater (AACT), a community-based organization that puts on three productions a year, including a spring children's show. All performances are rehearsed and performed at the Jan Dempsey Community Arts Center.
  There are a number of dance schools in the city that give classes in a variety of dance styles, such as ballet, jazz, hip-hop, ballroom, and even Irish dancing, which is supported by the Drake School of Irish Dance.
  Recreational opportunities in Auburn include 16 parks, highlighted by Chewacla State Park, a 700-acre (2.8 km²) park in the Appalachian foothills, Kiesel Park, a 200-acre (0.81 km²) "passive" park with numerous trails, and the Louise Kreher Forest Ecology Preserve. The Donald E. Davis Arboretum showcases 150 different tree species native to Alabama and the Southeast. Auburn is also ringed by miles of multi-use trails and several lakes.
caption: Felton Little Park.
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