-Schenectady, New York has Proctors Theater... a beautiful old turn of the 19th century Vaudeville theater that was saved from the wrecking ball by the community. Many famous acts and famous individuals played on its stage. If you are near it, you should go and see it now that it has been restored. Back in the early 70's, I worked there as an usher. The theater was haunted, I was told, but I had not experienced much of anything out of the ordinary. One day however, I was backstage near the green room and heard voices coming form the dressing rooms, which were not in use at all at the time. Thinking it may have been kids that had sneaked into the building, I went to investigate. I heard snatches of conversation "..the next act.." "Why?", and then, very clearly, a female voice said, "Im going to take a nice hot bath!" I looked around on the dusty first level, and found nothing, and saw no one, and no tracks. The dust on the unused floors was undisturbed. I continue! d to hear voices. I went to the second level. I heard water running. I went down the hall to the third dressing room on the left, which is where i heard the running water. The door was partially closed but I opened it and went in. It felt very strange to me, as if someone was there. But I saw no one..yet the HOT water WAS running in the tub, and I knew that the water was off to that portion of the building because it was winter and that section was unheated. I turned the water off, and reported what happened to my manager, who went back with me to look. The only prints on the dusty floor were from my shoes, and the tub was still wet. We checked the valves, and found that the water was off. We also went to the basement to check the valves there, and they were off as well. It wasn't my last encounter. To set up the outdoor marquee each week, we had to assemble the potmetal letters to make the signage up in advance. One night I went and did this earlier than usual, and stopped part way through the process to help the manager. When I came back, the letters had been completely re-arranged to be exactly the opposite of what I had previously arranged them in order. I accepted this as the ghosts work, and fixed them. I'm glad Proctors is still alive, so my ghostly friends still have a home. Dirk Hermance
-Whislt working in Newcastle upon Tyne I learned of Bob the theatre ghost of the TYNE THEATRE AND OPERA HOUSE. Bob was a stage hand in the theatre in the 1800,s when one night the cannon ball from the thunder roll jumped out of its track
and onto him killing him instantly. Bob's ghost has a tendancy of turning up at the most bizzare moments, once during a christmas run of ANNIE we were sitting up in the Gods at our followspot positions when all of a sudden the doors began banging and a low rumbling started from the area where the thunder roll used to be as if this wasn't spooky enough it turns out that it was 100 years to the day since he was killed. There are of course a lot more sightings of Bob but too many to list
-Steve Olley
A few years back, a young acting student hung himself in dispair
above the theater in a room adjacent to the lighting booth -- then
used for prop storage, etc. So it is no wonder that there are a
million stories of the theatre being haunted. One year, I was in
a performance of The Diary of Anne Frank. During the Hannaukah
scene, Mr. Frank is supposed to light a candle during prayer.
Except, it never seemed to work for him. The first night his hand
shook so terribly that he could not light it, and another cast me
mber had to do it for him. Mind you, this was a seasoned actor who
never had jitters in his career, but who had a propensity for saying
the name of the Scottish Play. The next night, he had similar
difficulties. he was able to light the match, but the candle
would just not catch on fire. To fix this, the next night he lit
two matches at one, and accidentaly sent one flying by my hair as
he franticly struck it. Luckily it died out. But the next night
the same thing happened, except instead of flying by, one of the
matches dropped onto the Bible he was holding (in place of a Torah).
The bible had a plastic cover, and luckily it left a portion of the
cover melted, instead of setting the theatre ablaze. As I watched
the light nearest to the prop room flicker mysteriously, I had
little doubt what had been the cause of these near-tragedies.
-Laura Therese Keuling
- Running Follow Spot on "Cheaper by the Dozen" for Thunder Bay Theatre in 1994 I had my first run in with TG (what the company calls him). I had long intervals between cues so I would go into the booth to help my friend Dre, who was running both lights and sound. I had to hold the sound board cables in the back of the board so the connection would hold during cues. At one point I held the connection for the Dre's first cue in that scene then kept holding for the rest of the paragraph of lines till the next cue. Dre and I were standing prefectly still whispering over the sound board and waiting. Suddenly, my shirt was pulled out to the left side so far that it hurt my neck. It was if someone had grabbed my shirt and was trying to pull me away from the board. I looked left and saw the shirt standing out then it fell back in place. I had not moved. There was no one else in the booth and nothing to catch it on. I looked across the board at Dre and said "Shut up, did't you see what just happened here?" She shrugged her shoulders and did her cue then tossed over her shoulder on her way back to the light board "It was just TG, you'll get use to him." I wanted to scream or hit her or some thing. But I just followed her lead and went on with the show. I believe now all the stories I use to hear about TG. -Christine P. Carriveau
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