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Monday, October 31, 2022
The Theater Is One of the Spookiest Places to Visit This Halloween Season. Here's Why
TheaterMania: As Halloween approaches, it seems like an appropriate time to examine the inherent spookiness of the theater.
Maybe one of the most obviously spooky shows is The Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running musical in Broadway history, which is set to close this February after more than three decades.
I am working on getting tickets to the Phantom of the Opera next month hopefully. It will be my first trip to New York City. I have seen the play before in London but I am excited to see it in new York as well. I am sad that it is closing but it had a good long run! I try not to think about ghosts and things that run amuck in theaters. I have a very real fear. It made the hairs on my body raise as I was reading stories from these well known theaters, theaters that I contemplate being able to work at one day. I never honestly put too much though into why we call a ghost light a ghost light but now I think I will think of it more often. I honestly wonder if that is an important question to ask when interviewing for jobs. I know some people care more than others but if there really is an active presence, I think I would want to know that before I took the job. Especially as a stage manager leaving “alone” at night.
This article was super interesting and fun. You hear endless stories about ghosts haunting theaters and the purpose of a ghostlight. Even high schools have ghostlights. I’ve always been on the fence about believing in ghosts, and it’s stories like these that always drag me back a bit. I tend to think of them as they’ve been described here - non-threatening, mischievous presences. And yes, it is interesting to examine whether or not the Phantom is magic. Though, I guess the magical lasso probably makes it undebatable that he’s magic. It’s a lasso that floats and self-constricts. The stories that people had to tell were super cool. I’m trying to decide what I would’ve done if I was in that situation. John Mulaney had a bit about how haunted Radio City felt: “I kept walking through cold spots saying, ‘I wonder who THAT used to be?’”
A bit lighter of an article, this piece is a super fun guide to some of the exciting things the theater has to offer during the Halloween season. Originally, I thought that this article would talk just about the horror genre of shows, like it begins to do when discussing Phantom of the Opera, so I was surprised to see that the article went on to talk about theatres that have a history of supposed hauntings. Although I personally do not fully believe/understand the existence of ghosts, it is really interesting to see people go over their own accounts of supposed sightings, and relive strange yet exciting phenomena that happened within theatrical spaces. This specifically reminded me of a conversation I had with a sophomore DP while on a call for This Old Haunt, where they talked to me about how the show requires the usage of Ouija boards, and that the props master (?) is going to be creating Oujia boards rather than using real ones out of fear of summoning a ghost within the Chosky Theatre. It makes you wonder what it would be like to have a ghost within the Pernell Center for us to have to deal with for our own shows.
I grew up spending most of my childhood in various theaters around st.louis and have experienced my fair share of “Paranormal experience” Locking up my high school's black box or an old movie theater turned performance venue. I don’t know if I necessarily believe in the power of the Ghost light but I like the idea of there being a story behind the space we inhabit where we tell our stories to have a story of its own. A few weeks ago, one of the St.Louis theater groups I am a part of stage managers were talking about their paranormal experiences in their theaters and sharing those stories seemed to unite the community. I don't know if I believe in the spooky story of the phantom of the opera but I am glad that ghost stories are a part of our community's culture. Theo
I've never been a huge believer in ghosts, but I find all of the many different stories and superstitions that have been created over the years fascinating. That's an aspect of theatre, and even more so of the buildings in which it is done, that I never really consider all that much. We work in an industry that has existed for literal millennia, and there are historic theatres still standing today that have seen thousands of stories told on their stage across just as long of a time period. It spawned superstitions whose meaning has been lost to time, like the use of a ghost light (which I actually never knew was also about ghosts, I thought it was just called that cause it was a solitary light in a room of darkness), and generated a unique cultural identity for pretty much every single theater in existence. I may not really subscribe to the idea that ghosts exist, but I honestly would love to learn more stories like this, if nothing else because they are just neat to examine from a cultural standpoint.
While it is no longer the Halloween season, this was a very cool read. I didn’t really know what I expected when I clicked on this article, but learning about the paranormal history of the Gershwin and other theaters is super interesting. I appreciated the article mentioning the slight irony of a haunted theater with a “haunted” show (Phantom of the Opera) that has been running in it for so long. I always find it so fascinating how so many theaters and buildings in general have ghost stories - today I heard about how the dorm Residence on 5th is apparently haunted, which I thought was kind of interesting. I personally love how theaters have ghost lights and a certain number of superstitions and while I’m not super superstitious myself, I appreciate how many of them are observed. Articles like this are just super interesting reads to me - learning about what makes each theater individual and what traditions and superstitions they hold.
6 comments:
I am working on getting tickets to the Phantom of the Opera next month hopefully. It will be my first trip to New York City. I have seen the play before in London but I am excited to see it in new York as well. I am sad that it is closing but it had a good long run! I try not to think about ghosts and things that run amuck in theaters. I have a very real fear. It made the hairs on my body raise as I was reading stories from these well known theaters, theaters that I contemplate being able to work at one day. I never honestly put too much though into why we call a ghost light a ghost light but now I think I will think of it more often. I honestly wonder if that is an important question to ask when interviewing for jobs. I know some people care more than others but if there really is an active presence, I think I would want to know that before I took the job. Especially as a stage manager leaving “alone” at night.
This article was super interesting and fun. You hear endless stories about ghosts haunting theaters and the purpose of a ghostlight. Even high schools have ghostlights. I’ve always been on the fence about believing in ghosts, and it’s stories like these that always drag me back a bit. I tend to think of them as they’ve been described here - non-threatening, mischievous presences. And yes, it is interesting to examine whether or not the Phantom is magic. Though, I guess the magical lasso probably makes it undebatable that he’s magic. It’s a lasso that floats and self-constricts. The stories that people had to tell were super cool. I’m trying to decide what I would’ve done if I was in that situation. John Mulaney had a bit about how haunted Radio City felt: “I kept walking through cold spots saying, ‘I wonder who THAT used to be?’”
A bit lighter of an article, this piece is a super fun guide to some of the exciting things the theater has to offer during the Halloween season. Originally, I thought that this article would talk just about the horror genre of shows, like it begins to do when discussing Phantom of the Opera, so I was surprised to see that the article went on to talk about theatres that have a history of supposed hauntings. Although I personally do not fully believe/understand the existence of ghosts, it is really interesting to see people go over their own accounts of supposed sightings, and relive strange yet exciting phenomena that happened within theatrical spaces. This specifically reminded me of a conversation I had with a sophomore DP while on a call for This Old Haunt, where they talked to me about how the show requires the usage of Ouija boards, and that the props master (?) is going to be creating Oujia boards rather than using real ones out of fear of summoning a ghost within the Chosky Theatre. It makes you wonder what it would be like to have a ghost within the Pernell Center for us to have to deal with for our own shows.
I grew up spending most of my childhood in various theaters around st.louis and have experienced my fair share of “Paranormal experience” Locking up my high school's black box or an old movie theater turned performance venue. I don’t know if I necessarily believe in the power of the Ghost light but I like the idea of there being a story behind the space we inhabit where we tell our stories to have a story of its own. A few weeks ago, one of the St.Louis theater groups I am a part of stage managers were talking about their paranormal experiences in their theaters and sharing those stories seemed to unite the community. I don't know if I believe in the spooky story of the phantom of the opera but I am glad that ghost stories are a part of our community's culture.
Theo
I've never been a huge believer in ghosts, but I find all of the many different stories and superstitions that have been created over the years fascinating. That's an aspect of theatre, and even more so of the buildings in which it is done, that I never really consider all that much. We work in an industry that has existed for literal millennia, and there are historic theatres still standing today that have seen thousands of stories told on their stage across just as long of a time period. It spawned superstitions whose meaning has been lost to time, like the use of a ghost light (which I actually never knew was also about ghosts, I thought it was just called that cause it was a solitary light in a room of darkness), and generated a unique cultural identity for pretty much every single theater in existence. I may not really subscribe to the idea that ghosts exist, but I honestly would love to learn more stories like this, if nothing else because they are just neat to examine from a cultural standpoint.
While it is no longer the Halloween season, this was a very cool read. I didn’t really know what I expected when I clicked on this article, but learning about the paranormal history of the Gershwin and other theaters is super interesting. I appreciated the article mentioning the slight irony of a haunted theater with a “haunted” show (Phantom of the Opera) that has been running in it for so long. I always find it so fascinating how so many theaters and buildings in general have ghost stories - today I heard about how the dorm Residence on 5th is apparently haunted, which I thought was kind of interesting. I personally love how theaters have ghost lights and a certain number of superstitions and while I’m not super superstitious myself, I appreciate how many of them are observed. Articles like this are just super interesting reads to me - learning about what makes each theater individual and what traditions and superstitions they hold.
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