Indiana Repertory Theatre

Indiana's flagship professional theater company, housed in the 1927 Indiana Theatre building. The ornate Spanish Baroque-style movie palace was designed by Preston C. Rubush and Edgar O. Hunter.

The Indiana Repertory Theatre occupies the former Indiana Theatre, a Spanish Baroque movie palace that opened on June 18, 1927 as the largest cinema ever built in Indianapolis. Designed by architects Preston C. Rubush and Edgar Otis Hunter in the Churrigueresque style, with an elaborate glazed terra cotta facade sculpted by Estonian artist Alexander Sangernebo, the six-story building originally contained a 3,200-seat auditorium, bowling alleys, billiard rooms, a soda fountain, and a rooftop ballroom designed to resemble the plaza of a Spanish village. Built for the Circle Theatre Company at a cost of $995,000, it was one of the first air-conditioned structures in Indianapolis. The building was converted for live theater in 1980 when the Indiana Repertory Theatre moved in from The Athenaeum.

The ghost that haunts the IRT is Tom Haas, the theatre's beloved artistic director from 1980 until his tragic death in 1991. Born December 7, 1937, Haas was a theater luminary who had directed Yale School of Drama's acting programs, where his students included Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Michael Gross, and Henry Winkler. He co-founded the Weathervane Theatre in New Hampshire and the PlayMakers Repertory Theatre in Chapel Hill before coming to Indianapolis, where he created the Upperstage for experimental works and the Cabaret Stage for musical revues, and wrote his own musical Operetta, My Dear Watson. Haas was an avid jogger who typically ran indoors around the theatre's mezzanine during poor weather. On the morning of January 28, 1991, he departed from this routine and went jogging outside near his Indianapolis home despite thick fog. A van struck him as he rounded a corner. He survived the initial collision but succumbed to a pulmonary embolism three weeks later on February 21, 1991, at the age of 53.

Employees and performers at the IRT report hearing Haas's phantom footsteps jogging up and down the mezzanine stairs nearly every night, running the same indoor route he used in life. The activity intensifies on rainy and cold days, exactly the kind of weather that would have kept Haas running indoors, when witnesses hear the floorboards creak as the unseen jogger circles the mezzanine above them. Some staff members have reported seeing his full apparition running through the lobby area before vanishing. The lights flicker on and off in certain parts of the building without explanation, particularly in the mezzanine and upper levels where Haas spent much of his time. The historic rooftop Indiana Roof Ballroom, which hosted lavish parties during the building's movie palace era, generates its own reports of residual energy and unexplained sounds. Ghost tour operators including US Ghost Adventures and Ghost City Tours feature the IRT as a key stop on their Indianapolis routes, noting it as both the city's largest and most haunted historic theater.