They’re Here: Ghost Stories from WUT
Did You Know? Ghosts in the Theater
By Esty Dinur
Walk onto the Wisconsin Union Theater’s stage at night and you’ll find a lone light to guide your way. Nestled in a squirrel cage on a stand, it is known as the ghostlight. It is there to ensure that people don’t crash around…and so that the theater’s ghosts have a light and can feel welcome.
Theater ghosts tend to be the spirits of people who died in them. According to former Director Michael Goldberg, the Union Theater is home to two ghosts. One is a construction worker who died in a work-related accident in 1939, when the theater was being built. The second was a percussionist with the Minneapolis Symphony. The orchestra played here on March 12, 1950, introducing its new musical director, Antal Dorati. Just before the intermission, an unrehearsed crash was heard in the percussion section. The substitute timpanist had a heart attack, collapsed, crawled off-stage and died before a doctor who was in the audience could reach the backstage area.
After the intermission, the manager walked onto the stage and announced the tragedy. The orchestra played the somber second movement from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony while the shocked audience filed out.
Goldberg used to sometimes find himself all alone in the theater in the wee hours, after the last crew person had left and when all the doors had been locked. He never saw a ghost but he had often felt a presence, heard someone walking, or some other sound that didn’t fit.
Ralph Russo, the theater’s current director, has had his own late night experiences. “I always hope to see a ghost, but never have,” he says. “When I’m the last to leave, I’ll often stand in the middle of the stage and listen and look up at the lighting cove - it’s never completely quiet and there are always strange eerie noises and sometimes, not always, the ghost light will reflect off the lights in the cove, giving the impression of ghostly movement.” Combine the two and it’s a guarantee for goose bumps.
He reports of other ghostly thoughts: “sitting in the theater alone, I sometimes wonder who may have sat here on opening night, Oct….1939? How many times were they thrilled by what they saw or heard here? I feel the presence of the millions of people who have enjoyed a program here over the past 66 years. How loud would their combined applause be?”
Do you have an interesting theater-related story? Send it Esty Dinur at the theater, or email to edinur@wisc.edu. Please enclose a phone number.
