StageLync: Halloween night at the Grandville Theater was unusually quiet—the kind of quiet that makes you wonder if you accidentally summoned something just by existing. The stage was dark, lit only by the ghost light in the center, casting long, overly dramatic shadows across the empty seats, as if it knew tonight was primed for theatrics. I was the last one in the building, organizing my notes and double-checking cue sheets, pretending I didn’t mind being alone in a pitch-black theater on Halloween.
3 comments:
This was an appropriately scary short story based on theatrical superstitions that to this day we still follow in theatre spaces. I have always found being the last one out of the theatre calming and perspective building about the day. Sitting in the quiet of the theatre finishing notes is always a wonderful time to reflect on the process of the day and put the attitudes of the day into perspective. This story did surprisingly hit home to my feelings about the ghost light and the superstition of ghosts in theatrical spaces. To this day, I still think the Chosky stage is haunted. There’s something about the ghost light being the only light on when we leave and it feels as though there are some supernatural powers watching over us in the space as we leave for the night. I hope that if I’m ever in a theatre on Halloween night as late as Bryan was, I hope I am not alone.
This was a very fun read! It incorporated so many small and niche theatre things that the average person would not understand, and just made me feel happy to be part of such a tight knit and crazy creative community. I think it perfectly balanced the mystery and fear one gets from being alone in a big empty space (like a theatre; seriously, it’s scary being the only one left in a dark theatre) and the humor of members of the theatrical community. I would honestly love to see the writer read this out, because it is almost like I can hear their tone, sass, and own voice throughout the words. This was the perfect article to read after a long Friday (and even longer week) here at CMU Drama and really helped me decompress and remember the joy, fear, and gravity of what I am choosing to spend the rest of my life doing.
This article does seem incredibly interesting to me because all of the Broadway theaters are so old, so you would think that some of them have to be haunted. So when I saw this article, I was really drawn into the subject matter that the author covers. This article was written by a production stage manager who was alone in the theater at night on Halloween. He talks about how the line between reality and performance started to blur and I find that super interesting to read about. I think that if I were in his situation, I would be terrified. I would do the thing where you turn off the lights, and then run away haha I would be so scared. This article did not talk about haunted theaters like I thought it would, but it brought up interesting points regarding theater and being alone in a theater at night.
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