Theatre Phantoms

It seems that almost every stage or movie theater has its share of ghost stories connected to it, and my high school’s theater is no different. This is a double story of how an entity makes a reappearance while a tale is being told about prior experiences with them. To all my knowledge the first portion of the story (which I did not experience first hand) is entirely true. I assure you that no exaggerations have been made.

When I was in high school I was very active in the drama department. I took the classes, participated in the plays, and helped to build the sets for many of our shows. The drama teacher, Mr. K., taught his classes in the school auditorium; that way he could keep an eye on the stage, especially if a show was in progress.

Anyway, he had a custom of telling ghost stories in every class on Halloween. This particular Halloween our school was putting on the play "Dracula" and I had gone in during one of my off periods to work on set construction. Mr. K. had a class that period and while I worked on painting a backdrop for the play, Mr. K. began telling ghost stories. The first story he told I had heard the previous year, it was a ghost story about that very auditorium.

The incident had taken place about 4 years ago. Mr. K. and the school were doing a production of Shakespeare’s classic ? Romeo and Juliet. One night, Mr. K. called the two actors that were playing the leads in for a private rehearsal. He wanted to work on the intimacy between the two characters. As it so happened, that night was also the night of the homecoming football game. Our school was fierce rivals with the school set against us that year, so to protect the campus from vandalism, chains and padlocks were secured around every exit door in the building, as well as around every parking lot entrance. Mr. K. and his students had used a side stage door to enter the school.

Anyway, in the middle of rehearsing, one of the janitors stopped in to clean the theater. He began talking to Mr. K. about the play and other things when suddenly there came a smashing at the main entrance doors into the auditorium. BANG BANG BANG. The janitor, being the closest to the doors, went over to them and opened them, figuring that someone needed to get in and couldn't, as the doors were locked from the inside. To his surprise, no one was there. The hallway the doors opened into was lengthy to both sides, and there really was no where to conceal oneself. Besides, the one set of doors at the right end of that hall was padlocked, as mentioned before. Shrugging, the janitor closed the doors, but no sooner had they clicked shut when the smashing came again. BANG BANG BANG. The janitor swung the doors wide before the last bang had even finished echoing in the theater. No one. The janitor, Mr. K. and his students left the theater in a hurry after that.

Back to the present. Mr. K. had all of his class entrapped in his story. And just as he finished telling it, a horrible knocking came from the set of back doors in the right wing. BANG BANG BANG. Everyone in the class screamed. Now keep in mind that this was happening in the middle of a class period, and Mr. K. was not expecting any visitors. Of course he asks me to investigate the knocking. Wonderful. I carefully stepped into the darkened stage wings and opened the doors. No one. That set of doors opened into a hallway just before it ended, which in turn opened out into the parking lot. I peered through the doors hoping to see a student walking to their car? but no one was to be seen. Apparently the spirit had heard his story and decided to make another appearance.

As a side note, Mr. K. often spoke of many other encounters with this spirit. If you would like to hear about them let me know. I hope you enjoyed my tale.