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From: guest@lanmail.rmc.com
Date: Fri, 23 May 97 14:55:00 -0700
To: obiwan@netcom.com
Subject: Dinner Theatre Ghost
Until it's closure in December of 1991, a dinner theatre/restaurant operated for over 20 years in Sunset Beach, CA (just north of Huntington Beach). The restaurant was on the second floor, while the theatre operated on the bottom floor. The building is fairly old, and I've been told that it had previously been an Irish bar.
Anyhow, I was a performer at the theatre during it's last three years of operation, and during that time some rather odd happenings took place in several different areas of the building. In no particular order, these are the ghostly events...
After the shows were over and the restaurant closed for the evening, the asst. manager often stayed late going over the days receipts. On occasion the cast and crew of the theatre also stayed late for rehearsals. On many occasions we heard inexplicable laughter that seemed to emanate from the upper floor of the building and echo down the stairway. Also common was the experience of witnessing the elevator ascend or descend entirely of it's own volition. These experiences happened with such frequency that one of the asst. managers actually quit because of them.
On one occasion a female performer came running out of the ladies room with a terrified look on her face. She claims that she saw a man standing behind her when she looked into the mirror, only to turn and find nobody there. Thereafter, she wouldn't enter that restroom, or any other restroom in the building, unaccompanied.
The most unusual experiences involved the dinner theatre. We would often find props, preset the night before, in strange places the next day. The techs would complain of unexplainable equipment problems, such as sound board settings being preset and then changed, "quirky" lights and unreliable microphones that were nevertheless in perfect working order.
But by far the strangest experience happened shortly before we were informed that the theatre and restaurant were closing for good. We were in rehearsals and had stayed late one night long after the restaurant staff closed up for the evening. We came back to the theatre early the next morning to continue with rehearsals to find that every piece of tape in the building had disappeared. The first thing we noticed was that all of the stage "markings" had been removed. Then we saw that the color-coded tape markings on the microphones and microphone stands had been removed. The tape markings on the sound boards had been removed, as had the rolls of tape in the tech booth. The manager then came in and found that even the answering machine tape had disappeared! A subsequent search of the offices and other areas of the building revealed the same mysterious lack of tape.
The staff and crew of both the restaurant and theatre were questioned, but we never were able to explain this strange event, and it was chocked up by all to another ghostly shenanigan.
Although my fellow performers and I have all gone onto other endeavors, when we manage to get together the "Dinner Theatre Ghost" is still a frequent topic of discussion and speculation.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share this experience!
Beth