Hark! Is that a ghost I hear, treading the boards?
Howdy! I’m Larissa Lyons and it’s time for more paranormal happenings and hauntings across the globe. I’m guessing my introductory line gave it away, but I’ll ask anyway…
Do not-quite departed souls enjoy a good rendition of Shakespeare as much as their more corporal counterparts? You bet they do! Stories of spectral sightings abound within the walls of both famed and little-known theaters.
Quite a few Scottish theaters boast their own ghostly inhabitants (aspiring actors, perhaps?). Thanks to Lily Seafield and her work in Ghostly Scotland, we know of a number of thespian spectres: Mysterious beings haunting balconies during performances…frigid chills freezing the blood of audience members…nebulous spirits soaring through the lights and stage rigging.
After his death in the middle of the 20th century, the ghost of Charles Mansford (the theater director, harking back to the 1930s) began haunting The Byre Theater in St Andrews. Though the building underwent demolition and complete reconstruction several decades ago, from what I gather, “Charlie” still likes to hang out there.
Jake, a stagehand accidentally killed by a hoist, has haunted His Majesty’s Theater (pictured) in Aberdeen since the 1940s. Albert, a trickster sort of spirit, haunts The Playhouse in Edinburgh. A female phantasm inhabits The Royal Lyceum, and a disembodied magician (who died there in a fire), the Edinburgh Festival Theater. Nora, originally a cleaning lady at The Theater Royal in Glasgow committed suicide after a humiliating and disheartening audition. Unwilling (or unable) to relinquish her dreams of stardom, she still visits.
Boy, what a string of sad tales. I’ve heard that lives which end tragically tend to predispose a soul to remain, and these sightings support that.
On a happier note, after nearly a year in the writing, Rein Me In, the second in the Bottoms Up Western/Light BDSM saga has been contracted with Ellora’s Cave! :) Larissa
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Larissa Lyons considers brownies an official food group and has a penchant for Roaring Rogues and sexy cowboys.
Her latest two releases, Sex & Solar Flares and Rein Me In will be available later this year. Read more at her website.
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