Haunted Theater Ghost Shoot

“Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown

I'm scared of needles, pickled pigs feet, and friendly people but I ain't afraid of ghosts. Seven ghost hunting vigilantes braved one haunted theater and made two ghost sitings.

The Legacy Theater in Springfield Illinois is purported to be haunted; ask anyone who works there. They will tell you of strange happenings-- flickering lights, falling ladders, inexplicable noises.

You see, in 1955, good ol' Joe Neville, an actor, was overwhelmed with financial difficulties and killed himself the day before he was to perform the lead role. It is said that he still haunts the theater to this day due to his unperformed play.



We took some pictures and guess who showed up? Neville. Believe it. 

But there is more than one ghost that haunts the theater. A monk in brown with an obscured face has been sighted, for instance. In our case, we saw this scary girl ghost...she's been known to haunt the Oak Ridge Cemetery but perhaps she frequents the theater as well...She looks exactly like me, but don't think about that.

Evil lore aside, this was a challenging adventure for a shy girl. I had to organize a bunch of people together, which is a lot harder than it sounds. I felt silly having to change the date of the shoot several times because of schedule conflicts. But you can't let embarrassment get in the way of an adventure.

I had the frightening task of asking people about coming. I was at a church thing and one of my friends, who was in charge (and who would have made a great Lincoln Ghost), asked something like, "Is there anything we can do to support any of you?" 

I decided to be honest "Yeah. Come with me to shoot some ghost pictures," I said. The room was all quite-like. He didn't want me to actually have an answer to that. The stiffness got to me. I felt rude. What if they thought it was dumb?

Then the questions came. Were we actually going to go inside the theater? Someone wanted to know. "Um, no." I said. Was that lame? I kept wondering if that was lame. I wasn't sure we could get in the theater without actually watching a play. Oh great, that meant I probably had to call the theater and find out just in case.

I called the theater and left a message. I hate phone calls. Did I mention I hate phone calls? I hate them. I explained my blog and asked if it would be acceptable for us to take pictures inside.

I was at a movie theater with my brothers and sister-in-law when my cell phone rang. We were playing arcades, waiting for the show to start. I was holding a bag of quarters, watching my fast-fingers sister-in-law win a ten dollar gift card. My heart jumped when I saw the number of the haunted theater on my cell. I dropped my purse and the bag of quarters on the floor. Darting away from the jangle of sounds and lights, I fumbled to answer the phone.

Once again, I explained to the man on the phone about my blog and asked if it would be possible for us to take photos inside the theater. It was harder when someone was on the other end. I felt nervous. "Just act natural," I thought. But I began getting self-conscious and overdoing things. Why was this simple thing so hard for me?

After my long winded explanation, the man said, "We don't do that here. We have respect for our immaterial friends." Gulp. Did that make me prejudice? Against ghosts? "Um," I said, "Well could we take pictures outside?" He replied that we could and his "have fun" sounded a bit sardonic as he hung up.

There are times in my life where I would have blamed myself horribly for this seemingly insignificant experience. I would have cried, felt like a bad person-- maybe a ghost-hater or something. That overreaction is the nature of social anxiety sometimes.

As it was, I had remembered something my therapist had said about just doing whatever I'm going to do and then letting other people deal with it. Their reaction is their decision. If I'm not doing anything wrong and they have a poor reaction, that's just how they are. It doesn't say anything about me. So, I let the negativity pass through me. I did experience it but it didn't become a denizen of my thoughts, really. I told my family about what happened and we laughed about it. That helped.

The day of the ghost shoot, I was nervous all day. My heart raced and my mind reeled. At one point it dawned on me that there was going to be a tomorrow, a day after the shoot. "Huh? What am I going to do then?" I wondered. It was as if I was afraid my soul would be sieved out of my mortal frame by unnatural powers of darkness. The anticipation had been building up for weeks. 

I was met with friendly faces. We traveled to the theater. Ironically,of all the ghost hunting vigilantes, I think I felt the least self-conscious about taking photos. In fact, maybe I was a bit too into it. 

After the photoshoot, we went to Sam's apartment and watched The Woman in Black and ordered pizza. Everyone was really nice and friendly. I think they are really a great bunch of people. And I'm glad I got to hang out with them.

Overall, I know I had my socially awkward moments and my moments that I should have been more confident. I felt embarrassed a few times. But I'm glad I did it. As my therapist has said, "Practice, practice, practice!"

Unlike the harrowing tale of Young Goodman Brown, I found the souls of people to be commendable and ghosts to be merely shadows--only the reflection of my own negative thinking.

Until my next adventure,

Namaste (Bye in Nepalese)

*Special thanks to my brother for photoshopping the images to look amazingly spooky :)