Ghost Stories

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The Floating Hand 

     Anna McLaughlin made everything run smoothly and on time. She made sure actors and actresses were in costume on time and ready to go on.  Soon the Springer theater was on tour. One night when the Springer would be playing at the Rylander Theater in close by Americus, and Georgia took the rare opportunity to sleep in familiar beds in Columbus the night before the play.   The next morning one of the actors was still in bed and everyone else was in the tour bus waiting for him.  Anna was not accustomed to wasting time so she left the others in the tour bus and headed upstairs to the guest apartments to find and awaken the slumbering actor.  She strode out of the green room and into Pigeon Alley, the long corridor that leads to the elevator. She knew that the lights in the corridor would be off. The rest of the Springer staff had not yet arrived to open the building.  Anna was a stage manager and was used to walking around in the dark, so she didn’t let a little thing like that slow her down. As she approached the entrance to the elevator lobby she was startled to get a light tap on the shoulder.  Anna turned in the direction of the tap but no one spoke to her.  She then stepped toward the elevator and pressed the call button. When the elevator door opened and flooded the lobby with light, Anna was stopped dead in her tracks by a disembodied hand floating in the air before her.  The hand extended its forefinger and wagged it disapprovingly inches from Anna’s nose.  Blocked from the elevator door by the floating hand, she couldn’t enter the lift before the door closed.  Frantically, she pawed at the darkened wall for the call button. Hitting it, the doors automatically opened again and once more bathed the lobby in light.  Anna was relieved to find herself alone.

The Third Floor Balcony Ghost

For years people have told stories of ghosts and unexplainable events happening at the Springer Opera House in down-town Columbus GA.  We  remember hearing lots of stories about the ghosts at the Springer from when we were children but one of them stuck with us more than the others.  It's a story about the third floor balcony ghost.  One Monday afternoon our group was talking to Mrs. Amy bishop of the Springer Opera House and she told our group about a play that one of here friends was going to be in. On a Thursday afternoon when her friend was on the main stage practicing her scene in the play she noticed that the heavy door to the lighting room on the third floor balcony was open and she knew that it wasn't supposed to be.  So she stopped the scene and called the lights manager and told him that the door was open, so he goes up the stairs and shuts the door. But, as soon as he walks off the balcony down the stairs she noticed that the door had once again been opened. The second that the lights manager came down from the balcony she ran over to tell him that the door had once again been opened. Halfway to the man she stopped dead in her tracks and looked up into the balcony and saw a ghostly figure standing by the door smiling as if he thought everything was a game.  Then in a flash he was gone. Other instances have been told where he just sits up there and watches the plays and the practices.  He has clearly been identified as Edwin Booth, brother to John Wilkes Booth.

The Costume Room Ghost 

     It takes a lot to put together a play, therefore it takes a lot of people to make a  good play happen.  During one play at the Springer one costume designer was staying late to finish one of the costumes.  It involved making a dress and a suit.  The woman had already finished making the suit and had moved on to the dress. While the dress was being pinned for size on a mannequin, the elderly women turned around to get more pins and when she turned back around all of the mannequins had been lined up in one strait line from the smallest children’s size, to the tallest of the adult sizes.  The women looked around questioningly because there was no one there but her.  No matter, the woman kept working on the dress and once again needing more pins she turned around for just a minute and when she turned back around to finish pinning the dress all the mannequins except for the one she was working on had been scattered across the room. She looked around again, and still saw no one. But this time she herd a snicker coming from the corner of the room, it sounded like a little girl but, when she walked over to the corner of the room she still saw no one. Suddenly she thought it must be a ghost, this is the Springer!  So now whenever a play is put on she warns the costume designers that there is a little girl who likes to play games. And they never understand what she means until they walk into the costume room.