The Paranormal Events of a Stage Manager

Despite developing a routine that seems to be mundane after doing it night after night for the last three weeks, being a stage manager never ceases to be interesting since there always seems to be some sort of problem that happens night after night. Whether it is a costume issue, someone is sick, one of the set pieces broke, one of the usher's is not doing their job or one of the actors is just being a diva, there is an endless supply of drama within the theatre community. Many of the issues here at the at the Hard Bargain players, people tend to attribute to the fact that we don't use a ghost light. I am not superstitious at all, so I don't buy into any of the theatrical superstitions that are out and about. It would be a good idea to have one for safety reasons, but I don't believe any of the several contradiction theories on the Ghost light. The ghost light is a light or lamp left onstage in a theatre when the rest of the lights are dark. It is typically "a portable, naked bulb mounted in a wire cage on a light standard."Most sources call for it to be placed downstage center while others claim center stage and still others, upstage. Some say that the purpose of a ghost light is to keep ghosts away, other's say that it gives the theatre's spirits a chance to perform onstage and prevent them from cursing the theatre or sabotaging the set pieces or show and other's believe that it's to avoid bad luck or sadness of the theatre being left "dark."

Although tonight seems to be going by without a hitch, as I thank the theatre Gods (and I say I'm not superstitious) for a night free of problems for once. It is a wonder that I am still mentally sane despite being involved with theatre for so many years. Although, I have to admit that halfway through the first act, I started hearing some odd noises in the spot light booth next to me in the next room over, even though there were not any spot light operators for this particular production. I did not really think about it much at all mainly because I thought it might have been the artistic director since there is a door from his office up to the booth but he would not be able to get out of the booth unless he went through the other door, which means he would have to pass through the room I was in. So, after about 20 minutes, I had a break and needed to talk to him about some business. I was kind of confused when I did not see anybody in the spot light booth, the archival booth or in the stair well to his office, nor was he upstairs where the main machinery for the air conditioner was, which I know he likes to go and have some alone time. I just shrugged it off thinking that it was my imagination going wild due to the stress of being a stage manager, having a full time job, going to school and my car being on the verge of croaking. I do believe in ghosts and demons but it is not usually the first thing that pops into my mind if I happen to see something out of the corner of my eye or hear something out of the norm that I cannot explain. So, I just go back to the light booth and keep going with the show. I can't exactly stop the show simply because I am hearing things; I'd probably at the very least get a serious talking to by the big man that signs my already meager check.

I keep hearing things and seeing things in the next room over for the rest of the performance and I begin to ask myself if I was seriously going crazy. I come to the conclusion that it might be bugs or some sort of pest that got into the building. So I bring it up to Jeffery, who is the artistic director of the theatre. I explain the situation to him and he said that he would look into it and have an exterminator look at it. I have a fleeting thought that Billy the exterminator from that A&E show might come and get rid of whatever it was that was in the booth, considering that it is one of my favorite shows to watch when I have the time. The second act goes on and I start figuring that noises were just typical noises of the air conditioner, the building settling, creaky doors, just the normal noises of an old building in desperate need of repair and as odd as it sounds these things are comforting to me since the theatre is like my second home.

A few nights go by and the performances go just as perfectly as the last. No drama, no errors, no nothing. Jeffery did have an exterminator come in and found a raccoon in the air conditioning system, how it got into the system in the first place baffles the entire staff but there was no way that it could have gotten out of the air ducts into the room since all the vent covers are screwed into the walls with the exception of where the actual system itself is and that door is always locked. My mind was partially eased, but the noises and movements I had been seeing the last few days, were IN THE BOOTH, and not coming from the air vents. The windows in the archival booth and spot light booth were both covered and none of the lights from the stage could have been affecting the shadows in the room. The only lights on were the blue lights that we always had on during performances. I had no choice but to shrug it off because I could not find an explanation as to what was going on.

In the homestretch of the run, with only five performances left, things started to get pretty serious up in the booth, along with the cast and technical crew starting to tell me about things that they could not explain. Props going missing, set pieces being moved, costumes being torn in two, at first, we all thought someone was breaking into the backstage area during the day when it was all locked up and moving everything. Of course we called the police, but no signs of a break in were evident, there was not really anything the police could do other than question people in the front office about all of this. With the exception of Jeffery, all of the people that worked in the front office were little old ladies that were on the verge of expiring and would not have been able to even to rip apart the costumes without having a heart attack, let alone move one of the set pieces, since most of them were at least 200 pounds each. Plus, we all knew Jeffery was an honest man and would not have even considered doing such a deed.

Since this was not the first time this has happened with no explanation, Jeffery decided to call a local paranormal investigation team to see if it was anything paranormal. Of course we were all very skeptical with the amount of violence that was going on, we could only assume that a couple of humans had done the damage. After a few nights of investigating, the team could not find any malevolent spirits but the night after they finished their investigation, we were in the middle of a performance, some unseen force, picked up the light board and threw it through the window, shattering the glass. Thankfully, there was nobody that had gotten hit but unfortunately, we had to end the performance and refunded the audience members money. We knew that if we told the public what actually happened, they would think we were all crazy, so we told the public that it was an intruder. Shortly thereafter, we brought the investigation team back in and had someone do an exorcism on the building.

Since then, we have not had any experiences that extreme again and we always make sure the ghost light is out onstage before we leave the building. Some say that is what the problem was when all of this was happening because at the time, we did not have a ghost light. I do have to say that I am superstitious now. Who knows, I am just glad that when I do a show now, I do not have to worry about the light board flying out the window on me ever again!