A few years ago, back in 2020, I performed in a small town production of the play And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.
It was a super fun experience, and for a small town dinner theatre, I was very surprised with the amount of thought and effort went into the design for the play. This is the only play I’ve been in where it’s literally rained on stage. Rained actual water. They were going to perform the show in 2019, but they were shut down due to the pandemic. The set was built and everything, but they just had to leave it there for a year. My role was originally played by someone else, but when the time came they could finally put on the show, that actor was busy. So, director asked me if I wanted it, and I jumped at the opportunity.
We performed it in an old community hall that was built right on top of an old military shooting range dating back to World War II. You can actually still see all the dirt mounds that they shot at down in the hall’s basement as well as some bullet casings still laying around. They literally just built the building over top.
Anyways, lots of the older and local folks in the cast/crew who have done many shows in that hall over the years claimed it to be haunted. Ghost stories have always excited me, so I loved hearing about them, especially while standing inside the building they take place in. They told stories of an unplugged electric piano playing on its own, disembodied footsteps, and the kitchen doors swinging open by themselves. However, the one story that intrigued me the most was how there’s this overwhelming sense of fear in the green room/dressing room when you’re there alone at night.
The way the green room/dressing room was situated, it had a flight of stairs right backstage leading up to it. Most of them hated being the ones to lock the place up after hours, and I can understand why.
During one show, there was a part when I was the only person backstage on the one side right next to the stairs leading to the green room/dressing room. We had big black curtains that blocked the audience from seeing the backstage whenever the door on that side of the set was opened. On this night, one side of the curtain moved very suddenly as if someone had just opened the door, and walked past. However, at this point in the script, nobody should’ve come through that door.
I thought that maybe somebody did come backstage, but when I checked, there wasn’t a living soul near that curtain. And the way the curtain moved couldn’t have been from any random gust of wind. It looked like it was deliberately kicked.
I can’t really explain it, but I kind of just shrugged it off at the moment. I joked to myself that the ghost just wanted to come see the show. Hopefully they enjoyed it, even if it was a show about death and murder.
A couple years later in 2022, I did another show in that same hall. This time we did Noises Off by Michael Frayn, but sadly I did not have any other spooky experiences like the one before.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story! I really hope you enjoyed it.