Ghosts and Ghost lights

Tales of haunted theaters abound, not only in America, but Europe as well. Almost every theater in fact has an unexplainable occurrence that they attribute to a ghost. Jim Whitherell, who was head of the COS Theater Department for most of its existence has one as well. It happened when the COS theatre was fairly new. One of the acting students had been killed then recently in a car accident. The stage lights flickered on and off throughout one dress rehearsal, when the lighting booth was inaccessible. Many theaters even attribute much luck to any one who sites one of their theater's apparitions. Anyone who sees the Drury Lane Ghost in London, England is supposed to be given extraordinary success in acting.

Ghost lights are another interesting superstition. The generally accepted definition of a ghost Light is “… a single bare-bulb lamp left burning in the middle of the stage all night.” (Knapp) There are many ideas about how the practice of ghost lights came to be. There is everything from an urban legend about a burglar in a theater who sued when he fell off the stage in the dark, to that it is an equity mandate. (Primrose)

The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts gives this background on their ghost lights; “There is a special light on a pole that can usually be pointed out easily in this theater. This is known as the ghost light. There is one in each of the four theaters. They are there for two reasons- one more practical and the second more fun. The first reason for the ghost light is so when someone walks into backstage of the dark theater they don't trip over set pieces and hurt themselves or accidentally walk off of the edge of the stage. The second reason is that back in Shakespeare's time candles were burned in theaters to scare away ghosts from old performances. Many theaters burned down from the simple fact that fire and wood don't mix but since we now have electricity, that is really not a problem.”

We do not have a ghost light on the COS theater stage--not yet anyway. Fortunately, we have light switches next to all the theater entrances, so that fumbling in the dark does not occur. I found that the Southern Oregon University theater stage however does have one. They have even named it--Helga. Clearly the benefits of this superstition are safety!