A Christmas Carol<\/em> (itself a ghost story) factors out in a compendium of a few of the theatre\u2019s eerie tales, devotees of paranormal exercise imagine that the unexplained look of dimes indicators the presence of spirits.<\/p>\nThe primary keeper of the venue\u2019s ghost tales in recent times is former technical director Karl Orrall\u2014McDonald notes that after he even led a tour for the employees of the entire reportedly haunted spots. Orrall has had his share of spooky interactions himself. Remarkably, he notes, when \u201csomeone brought in a \u2018sensitive\u2019 and gave them a tour of the building,\u201d that particular person detected the entire alleged sightings with none prior data.<\/p>\n
Among the numerous spirits Orrall identifies is the obvious ghost of a kid.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften in the Dowling, when you stand onstage and look toward the booth on the corner of your vision, you can see a dark spot, or maybe it is a mass, house left in the middle row,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes when it is quiet and no one has been in the theatre, you can surprise it and you will be able to clearly see a small boy standing there. He is dressed in brown pants, a white shirt, and a corduroy cap\u2014and then he is gone. I know several other people have seen him over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the Blue Lady. In the late Nineties, Orrall served as the corporate\u2019s stage carpenter. At that point smoking indoors was authorized, he mentions, \u201cand the stage crew would hang out on the steps outside of the electrics shop and smoke and drink coffee because there is a window on that level.\u201d He continues, \u201cThe first time we saw her was at the places call for a show I can\u2019t remember.\u201d As a number of members of the crew ready to maneuver to locations, he says, \u201cwe would wait until the actors passed before we would move. Suddenly a translucent, slightly blue woman came out of the closed electric shop door, headed towards the stage door to the Chace Theater. As she passed the window I remember being able to see through her. She was in a hurry and called out the name Laura a couple of times.\u201d I recollects {that a} manufacturing assistant in a chair on the touchdown beneath the greenroom stood up and shouted, \u201cWhat the fuck was that?\u201d after which ran as much as the greenroom. \u201cSeveral crew members avoided the back hall for a while. I think we saw her two more times over the next couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orrall additionally recollects one run of A Christmas Carol<\/em> a few years in the past during which the present \u201chad two casts, two running crews, and two carpenter crews building it. At one point the entire night crew quit, so the day crew had to work some overnight shifts.\u201d At about 3:30 a.m. throughout one in every of these shifts, Orrall went as much as the restroom within the greenroom of the Chace, the place this season\u2019s Christmas Carol<\/em> will start performances this week. \u201cI pushed open the door, and a man was standing there washing his hands,\u201d he says. \u201cHe was wearing a green sweater with a tan Egyptian pattern on the collar with a pair of tortoise-shell glasses tucked into the collar, brown pants, and very shiny brown loafers. I said, \u2018Hello,\u2019 and he said, \u2018Hello, you guys are here late tonight.\u2019 I said something about the other crew quitting and that this was a huge build. I went into a stall and heard him grab some paper towel.\u201d<\/p>\nNormal sufficient, proper? Orrall continues: \u201cAt this point he asked how long I had been at Trinity. I replied, and then he said that the set was looking good and he told me to have a good night.\u201d Silence. \u201cI left the stall and realized that the restroom door was not swinging closed and that I did not hear it close before I left the stall. I ran out after him but could not see him, and oddly thought to myself that I never heard his shoes on the tile.\u201d Orrall provides, \u201cHe was not anywhere to be found. I asked the TD if he knew of anyone else in the building, and he told me that everyone else had left. We all avoided the greenroom for the rest of the night. Years later I saw his picture hanging in the lobby; out of respect I will not say who it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Trinity Rep\u2019s constructing. (Photo by Anne Harrigan)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nDisembodied Voices and Self-Opening Doors<\/strong><\/h2>\nThe Rodgers Theatre in Poplar Bluff, Mo., was opened by impresario I.W. Rodgers as a film theatre in 1949, and present Rodgers Theatre supervisor Shanna Eason notes that there have been so many alleged encounters that ghost hunter teams have led excursions of the constructing and likewise conduct in a single day investigations that flip up fairly a little bit of exercise. \u201cI can\u2019t verify the information they share on their tours,\u201d she concedes. \u201cHowever, we have had some interesting stories and I personally have experienced strange things.\u201d<\/p>\n
What sorts of unusual issues? Why, phantom doorways, as lately as final month. \u201cMost of the doors to the theatre have been upgraded to hollow metal doors with panic bars,\u201d Eason explains, so \u201cthey have to be opened from the inside by engaging the bar and in most cases, the bolt locks are engaged.\u201d She notes that on a number of events that the theatre\u2019s doorways have been mysteriously open, \u201cand I have to drop what I\u2019m doing to go close them. Our cameras show them opening and closing on their own! I have been laughed at. Most of the time I am alone there, and I thought someone was lurking; however, the cameras show nothing and the voice sounds right behind me.\u201d Eason says she isn\u2019t bothered by these presences: \u201cI have never been scared by any of the activities because I love the history. It has been a good time, for sure!\u201d<\/p>\n
The Prankster Performer<\/strong><\/h2>\nFormer Broadway home the New Victory Theater, which first opened as Theatre Republic in 1900, has a wealthy historical past, and plainly a few of the memorable figures who\u2019ve trod the theatre\u2019s boards and backstage have by no means left. Actor Tim Dolan, whose love of theatrical ghost tales led him to determine the strolling tour firm Broadway Up Close, feels the construction\u2019s intensive historical past has lot to do with the assorted ghost encounters over time. \u201cIt has had its fair share of big personalities that have filtered through its doors,\u201d Dolan says, \u201ceach leaving their mark in their own unique ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colleen Davis, the New Victory\u2019s manufacturing coordinator, has witnessed firsthand the generally mysterious outcomes of these legacies. From her first day on the theatre, working as an assistant stage supervisor on the day of the opening celebration of the newly renamed theatre in 1995, she discovered that the constructing and units in it could behave in unusual methods. \u201cFor one whole day, I could not get a lock or a key or a key code or a door to work, the photocopier\u2014nothing worked for me,\u201d she recollects. But when another person tried, every thing functioned correctly. This was earlier than Davis heard any ghost tales concerning the theatre, and he or she thought the constructing one way or the other hated her. But she didn\u2019t surrender, and after freelancing as a stage supervisor for the group for a couple of years, she joined the employees in her present position in 1998.<\/p>\n
A yr or so into Davis\u2019s full-time tenure, throughout a renovation that led the wardrobe crew to work from the lure room beneath the stage as a substitute of their common designated house, simply earlier than a efficiency by the Australian group Circus Oz, a bow tie went lacking. The crew had final seen it on the performer\u2019s dressing room desk. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not there,\u201d Davis recollects. \u201cWe hunted, hunted, hunted\u2014couldn\u2019t find it.\u201d Eventually, a search celebration composed of Davis, the stage supervisor for Circus Oz, and the New Victory\u2019s wardrobe supervisor gave up and determined to start out the present with out the tie. Then, because the three of them had been \u201cwalking past the wardrobe room, there was a stack of metal shelves. There was a plastic bin that actually shot out and flipped upside down, and fell on its lid,\u201d Davis provides. The wardrobe supervisor \u201cpicked up the bin, and on the floor was the bow tie, and we all said, \u2018Thank you,\u2019 and went on with the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Mrs. Leslie Carter in 1906.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nDavis says that this turned a sample: An merchandise would disappear from one of many dressing rooms, they\u2019d go on the lookout for it, and \u201cright when we\u2019d give up, that\u2019s when it would be refound somewhere else. Or maybe right where we\u2019d looked.\u201d<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t the one time a bow tie went lacking and reappeared. Sharlon Wilson, the New Victory\u2019s wardrobe supervisor at the moment, recounts an analogous incident. \u201cI believe it was 2001, I put a bow tie on a rack onstage, and I went to the restroom, and when I returned it was gone,\u201d she says. \u201cI was the only person in the theatre at the time\u2014as you know, the wardrobe people are the first to come in and the last to leave the theatre. I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes: When I realized that the bow tie had moved to the opposite side of the stage, I was in disbelief\u2026I could\u2019ve sworn I saw a blurry image of a person. I was so frightened that I snatched the tie and moved swiftly to put it back in place and left the theatre.\u201d Wilson provides that, on events when she was alone on the theatre late at evening, generally she \u201cwould hear things moving around and some faint voices when I would put costumes onstage or pick up laundry off the stage,\u201d and \u201cI would often see images run past me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis stories that whereas she isn\u2019t conscious of any incidents in recent times, the mischief she did witness continued for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe kept playing pranks on us,\u201d Davis says. \u201cShe disassembled an accordion on me once, like, the blocks and the reeds inside. They were all unscrewed, like all of them were all over the case.\u201d Why does she gender the spirit as a lady? \u201cEveryone\u2019s assuming it\u2019s Mrs. Leslie Carter, because the theatre featured her while she was a star in New York\u201d within the first decade of the twentieth century, when the venue was known as the Belasco Theatre. Davis acknowledges that they’ll\u2019t ensure it\u2019s her, \u201cbut the guess is that she\u2019s a performer, because she never messes with the show.\u201d Whatever the problem, \u201cshe always fixes it, or we fix it, by showtime. We\u2019ve never actually had a prank that affected the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Devilish Deacon<\/strong><\/h2>\nWhen director Mike Ricci, now primarily based in Minneapolis, turned inventive director of an area theatre in North Carolina (which declined to have its identify included on this story) in spring 1990, the receptionist and field workplace supervisor, plus a couple of board members, informed him tales of a priest who allegedly died within the constructing when it was a Baptist church; he had been a deacon who had led the congregation. Since the employees consisted of simply Ricci and the field workplace supervisor\/receptionist, Ricci explains, his position was \u201cpretty much of a one-person operation,\u201d with duties starting from funds administration and fundraising to bodily upgrading the house and designing and setting up units. As a end result, he notes, \u201cI spent a lot of hours in that building, from early morning to past midnight on some days.\u201d<\/p>\n
On one scorching summer season evening in that first yr, Ricci was alone within the theatre and wanted to get to the sunshine board. He explains that reaching the board on home proper required going throughout the balcony, as a result of the house retained the church format\u2014\u201cpews for seating, stage built over the baptistry, balcony where the lighting booth was set up, stained-glass windows surrounding the audience and backstage\u201d\u2014and had entry to the balcony on simply the home left aspect.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I started crossing the balcony,\u201d he recollects, \u201cthe temperature suddenly dropped. I got chilled to the bone, and the hair stood up on my arms and my neck. I had never experienced that before. Thinking that it might be the deacon, and that he might be resting up in the balcony, I carefully made my way over to the light board, made the adjustments I needed to make, and made my way across, and then back down the stairs and onto the stage.\u201d When he resumed his work, Ricci says, \u201cI began to feel very uncomfortable, almost like a weight on my chest, difficulty breathing, etc.\u201d He stood up and introduced, firmly and clearly: \u201cI know you\u2019re here, Deacon, and I\u2019m sorry about what\u2019s happened to you. But I have work to do, and I\u2019m going to be spending a lot of time in this building, so let\u2019s make a truce that the both of us can be in here at the same time without bothering each other. Okay?\u201d Ricci says he paused a bit, then \u201cbegan to feel more normal\u2014the weight was gone, and my breathing returned to normal.\u201d After that, Ricci says, \u201cI always felt that I had made some kind of peace with the deacon, and we were able to coexist in the building without really getting in each other\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apparently the truce didn\u2019t lengthen to Ricci\u2019s spouse and daughter. About a yr after that incident, Ricci\u2019s spouse, painter and designer Ellie Ricci, was engaged on the corporate\u2019s 1991 manufacturing of Frankenstein<\/em>, and stories a weird expertise whereas she was washing off brushes. She says she went to the again of the constructing to the slop sink; to take action, due to the church setup, it was essential to go down a hallway to the store, and on the reverse finish of the store was a small room with a sink. \u201cI went down the hallway\u2014nobody else was around at the time\u2014walked past the shelves on my right that went over my head about a foot or so,\u201d she says. On the nook publish of the highest shelf was a corduroy Florida State baseball cap. \u201cIt was sitting on top of that post for a very long time, years, I\u2019d say. When I walked past it and got to the back where the door to the sink was, I heard something drop behind me. I turned around and it seemed that the hat was dropped to the floor. But in order for that hat to come off that peg it would have had to be lifted and dropped, and it was dropped right side up onto the floor.\u201d She regarded round, known as out, and when nobody responded, she proceeded towards the sink.<\/p>\nWith her again to the door, she says, she \u201ckept turning around because I kept thinking there was someone behind me, maybe wanting to use the sink, I don\u2019t know, but nobody was there. I washed up as quickly as I could because I started getting the creeps.\u201d She headed again to the theatre, put the cap again on the publish or on a piece desk, \u201cwalked out the door and started walking down the hallway. Then in my ear, very close to the back of my head, at my right shoulder I heard a big hiss that was too close for comfort, so I screamed and ran back to the stage. Needless to say, I was pretty rattled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their daughter, Danielle Ricci, now a choreographer, director, and educator, was 8-10 years outdated throughout Mike Ricci\u2019s tenure on the theatre and attended elementary college throughout the road from the theatre. She hung out there every day after college whereas her mom was at work. \u201cAs a kid I grew up with a gift of feeling energy and hearing things,\u201d she recollects. \u201cI didn\u2019t like it, because it scared me and made me uncomfortable.\u201d She notes that she\u2019s an solely little one, \u201cso I was left to myself at the theatre and would find ways to fill the time as my dad either worked in his office or in the shop building a set. There were many times where I felt that I was being followed\u2014especially on the stairways on either side of the building.\u201d She describes how she\u2019d climb the steps \u201cin a weird way so that my back was against the wall so that I didn\u2019t feel the presence behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A number of recollections significantly stand out, she says. \u201cThere was a time in which I was sitting and drawing in the break room and was hearing my mom\u2019s voice call me from the shop area of the theatre,\u201d she says. \u201cI knew my mom was at work and thought it was impossible that she was there. But I keep hearing my name being called. So, I called her from the phone on the desk I was sitting at, and she was in fact at work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there was the time her college choir was studying a musical theatre medley that included the title tune of The Phantom of the Opera<\/em>. \u201cThere was a day where I was in the lobby by myself, singing this part of the concert to myself,\u201d she recollects. When she acquired to the Phantom\u2019s line \u201cSing, my Angel of Music!\u201d she says, \u201cI heard these disembodied words right behind my right ear as clear as day.\u201d She was so upset, she says, \u201cI ran out of the room trying to find my dad.\u201d<\/p>\nOn one other event, she was in her father\u2019s workplace, which had beforehand served because the deacon\u2019s workplace. She explains that her dad\u2019s \u201cdesk sat facing the door, and a wall of windows was to the right. There was a heavy window that was always propped up with a piece of scrap lumber cut to hold the window open.\u201d As she sat on the desk, \u201cfilling my time, I saw the top of the piece of wood forcefully drop out, causing the window to slam on the wall. There was a loud sound like the furnace roaring, and the chair I was sitting in spun around.\u201d<\/p>\n
In sum, Danielle says she was all the time uncomfortable on the theatre as a result of the deacon\u2019s presence \u201cwas always around me. There are many times I would be in a room doing whatever I was doing and I would get so overwhelmed with a feeling of his presence that I would go find another person to be with.\u201d Those sensations, she says, \u201cmade me aware that the stories about the deacon were very true.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Albany Little Theatre (now known as Theatre Albany).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nVoices in My Head<\/strong><\/h2>\nWhen Bob Shuttleworth was technical director of the Albany Little Theatre (now Theatre Albany) in Georgia from July 1984 to August 1986, he says, he \u201chad heard rumors and legends of encounters at the theatre, a large antebellum home to which a theatre house (stage and audience) had been attached at the rear.\u201d The constructing has been providing performances since 1932, so there\u2019s been loads of time for these tales to build up. \u201cOne legend involved a bride who died on her wedding day at the home,\u201d Shuttleworth says. \u201cOne co-worker stated that she\u2019s felt a presence pass through her, leaving the scent of lavender behind.\u201d He notes, \u201cI am not necessarily a believer in such things, however I try and keep an open mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
On one evening in 1985, at round midnight, he was onstage engaged on a chunk of surroundings for the upcoming manufacturing when one thing weird occurred. \u201cI began to feel something,\u201d he recollects. \u201cSomething intangible. I tried to simply shake it off, but it didn\u2019t stop. A few minutes later I noticed that the stage had grown noticeably cooler, and that the feeling that something was there with me grew stronger.\u201d He was kneeling on the stage on the time and raised his head to go searching, however there was nothing to be seen. \u201cThen I began to feel nervous, even a bit shaky, but couldn\u2019t figure out why. That\u2019s when I heard something. Or actually, I felt something, some kind of a voice in my mind. It was saying to me, \u2018You need to leave\u2026now!\u2019 It was calm, but insistent. I laid down the tool I was holding and stood up and again looked around. Then I felt the presence again saying, \u2018Now!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Shuttleworth explains he left the device, turned off the lights, and headed out the door, locking it behind him. \u201cAs I took the few steps to my van, I began to feel calmer in one way, but definitely unnerved. I truly believed that I had heard\/felt something. It definitely motivated me to leave. I worked there for about another year. Never had that experience again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ghost Light and the Wind Walkers\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\nThough theatre ghosts are sometimes related to outdated, storied venues, Sheila Rocha, chair of performing arts on the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, N.M., stories unusual happenings at her campus\u2019s Performing Arts and Fitness Center (PAFC), regardless that its building was accomplished in 2018. When the PAFC was lower than a yr outdated, she says, \u201cbooms were set up for side lighting. LEDs set, tested, and ready. We turned off everything, about to walk out, when a light from the suspension grid faded up.\u201d A member of the tech crew went as much as the catwalk and unplugged the instrument. As all of them acquired prepared to go out, the stage left sidelight turned on. \u201cWe\u2019re a bit baffled. Checked the light board\u2014it\u2019s powered off. We unplugged it, but it just remained on. We studied that contraption and all the power cords from every angle. It had no juice but continued to remain lit.\u201d She provides, \u201cWe let it be what it was, locked up and went home. It finally went to sleep sometime during the night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rocha highlights that IAIA \u201cis the first tribal college to create a BFA program in Indigenous Performing Arts with a state-of-the-art black box theatre,\u201d and notes that this system\u2019s earlier house was extremely inappropriate for efficiency, a \u201cNavajo-inspired structure on the property\u201d that had \u201cterrible sight lines and support poles, poor acoustics, and this peculiar ambience.\u201d<\/p>\n
One time whereas rehearsing with an Acting 1 class, \u201cwe were struggling to block inside of four major support beams. We sat on the floor to brainstorm our dilemma. Without warning the skylight turned dark as apparently storm clouds began to gather above us.\u201d Rocha continues, \u201cA powerful wind fell upon the hogan, subsided, and then we heard the oddest sound of footsteps. On the roof of the hogan we heard someone or something walking. They moved over the roof from one side and then to the other. A second set of footsteps joined in.\u201d She provides, \u201cWe peered upward but saw nothing through the skylight. Steps intensified. The apparent weather change became too much for us, so we decided to light a fire in the wood stove. One of the acting students picked up a few logs and opened the stove.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Sheila A. Rocha.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThey then heard the wooden drop to the ground. \u201cEveryone turned to see the student standing in bewilderment as they backed away. Another student jumped up to see what was in the stove.\u201d What did they discover? \u201cA small multicolored bird lay dead inside. It wasn\u2019t a native species from the area. But it lay there spread out as if someone had designed its presence\u2014one wing opened like a fan. The other wing tucked gently behind the tiny body, its beak closed pointed upward. An art piece with no purpose.\u201d One scholar fastidiously took out the hen and introduced that he\u2019d bury it exterior. \u201cHe left the hogan, a gust slamming the door shut behind him. The wind whipped up once more.\u201d<\/p>\n
They all went to the middle of the constructing, in settlement that one thing was deeply off however not understanding what to do. \u201cAs quickly as the wind and footsteps arrived,\u201d Rocha says, \u201cthey abruptly subsided. The sun broke through the gray, and whatever was walking above our heads relented. The student returned, and like good theatre folk we went back to work, but with eyes on the clock.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rocha additionally recollects an eerie expertise in round 2005 at a theatre in Nebraska (which requested to not have its identify included on this piece): \u201cOur Native American ensemble, Four Directions, rehearsed and performed in what used to be the theatre balcony,\u201d Rocha says, \u201ctransposed into a black box with subtle reminders of its century-old Mediterranean and Moorish architecture.\u201d She continues, \u201cDuring the Jim Crow era, it consigned people of color to the balcony, but later became the more contemporary locus for communities of color to explore performance creation. Mortar holds memory.\u201d<\/p>\n
During a break, one of many actors, named Moses, went to the basement to get chilly drinks for the group. Rocha says he heard him shout, \u201cCome down here right away!\u201d She says she took the elevator down and stopped in entrance of the fireside within the former smoking room. \u201cI didn\u2019t see Moses,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I heard the sound of a bouncing ball from the basement lobby area.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMoses?\u201d she stated in a stage whisper. \u201cMoses, are you down here?\u201d Rocha notes that it was chilly within the basement, and the lighting consisted of a faint yellow from sconces on the partitions. \u201cI heard heavy feet walking across the mosaic flooring. The bouncing faded as if the ball rolled away. \u2018Moses!\u2019 Stage voice two. I\u2019m feeling a little creeped out now. I moved toward the light.\u201d The actor responded: \u201c\u2018Dang, did you hear that?\u2019 My tall Lakota colleague, along with his arms pushed deep into his pockets, emerged from across the nook\u2014his eyes vast. \u2018You see anything? But you heard it, didn\u2019t you?\u2019 Rocha says she may do nothing however nod.<\/p>\n
Rocha says that though \u201cMoe\u2019s a grown man and a leader in the community,\u201d that evening \u201che shook his head, accompanied by a nervous chuckle, half unnerved. His long braids trailed behind him as he cued me to start up the stairs with him.\u201d She continues, \u201cI tried to ask about the drinks, but having lost all interest he hustled up the steps, his boots clicking the speed of hooves at a steady gait. As we reached the main landing we heard a sound, like a door closing or opening from below\u2014and that damned ball, or was it air ducts, or a rat?\u201d She provides, \u201cWe froze, looked at each other for a split second, then ran up the next flight of stairs laughing, or screaming\u2014stage voice three, who knows. All I recall is that we were alarmed, and it was all I could do to keep up with him. The theatre was mostly dark until we reached the mezzanine.\u201d She recollects saying, \u201cYes, I heard it. But I didn\u2019t see anything, and you didn\u2019t either, did you?\u201d<\/p>\n
She says he defined that, upon reaching the highest of the basement stairs, Moses heard a toddler\u2019s voice and the sound of a bouncing ball. \u201cHe called down to see what child might be there, if perhaps someone was still in the building. Youth classes rarely extended beyond our evening rehearsal time three floors below us and tucked away. No one answered him. But he continued to hear the bouncing ball and kid sounds, so he decided it was best to see if someone, somehow got locked in the theatre.\u201d When he discovered the house empty, he known as out to her. \u201cBut I got here in from the course that he had heard the voice and it was solely the dim chilly\u2014nobody was there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hopped the elevator from the mezzanine to avoid any unnecessary encounters with the mystical,\u201d she says. When they reached the black field, two of the youthful performers, accompanied by two older actors, \u201capproached me as the director to describe how they had been mysteriously accosted. One child\u2019s braid was pulled by\u2026no one; an older teen in a back room saw someone open her door while she was changing, but no one was there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rocha describes what occurred subsequent: \u201cAs our Indigenous ways instruct us, we did the appropriate ceremony and prayer to address the tricky spirits who came to taunt us,\u201d she says. \u201cWe were able to get them to leave that evening, but other rehearsals for other shows opened new portals for supernatural guests who took their turns invading our spaces: shadowy figures watching us from empty audience seats, voices muttering in other languages, and an occasional tittering child reminding us the sacred can equate to the unknown.\u201d Rocha repeats: \u201cMortar holds our memories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russell M. Dembin (he\/him) is a former managing editor of this publication.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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