Landers Theatre

A historic theater built in 1909, one of the oldest continuously operating theaters in Missouri. Home to the Springfield Little Theatre, the Landers has hosted performances for over a century in its ornate Beaux-Arts interior.

The Landers Theatre at 311 East Walnut Street in Springfield, Missouri, opened on September 18, 1909, with a production called "Golden Girl," fulfilling the dream of John Landers, a lumber businessman who envisioned bringing world-class entertainment to the Ozarks. For over a century, the theater has hosted vaudeville, burlesque, legitimate drama, and community productions on its historic stage. But the Landers Theatre's most compelling performances may be the ones given by its ghosts -- a diverse cast of spirits who have been documented by staff, performers, and paranormal investigators since the 1920s.

The theater's primary haunting is attributed to a stagehand who reportedly died in the building in the early twentieth century. One account describes the man hanging himself from the high rigging above the stage, while another connects the ghost to a fire that broke out on December 18, 1920. While historical records confirm the fire, no death certificate has been found linking a fatality to the blaze. Regardless of his origin, the stagehand's ghost manifests as a green, hazy orb approximately five feet tall that drifts through the backstage area and flies up into the rigging where he reportedly met his end.

The most disturbing haunting involves the phantom of a baby falling from the balcony -- a recurring spectral reenactment of an accident in which an infant was dropped or fell from the upper level. The baby's cries are heard echoing through the theater at irregular intervals, a sound so realistic that staff members have searched the building for a living child before accepting that the cries have no physical source.

An African-American man who was stabbed to death in the second balcony during the 1920s is another documented ghost. His death occurred during the era of racial segregation, when the upper balcony was reserved for Black audience members, and his spirit remains in the area where his life was violently taken. From the street outside, witnesses have reported seeing a tall blond man in Elizabethan clothing gazing out of a fourth-floor window, a figure that suggests the ghost of an actor who may have died during a production centuries removed from his costume.

Unplugged spotlights turn on and off throughout the building, performers sense invisible presences following them through the wings, and unseen hands tap people on the shoulders during shows and rehearsals. Apparitions have been glimpsed in the audience, the lobby, and the dressing rooms, creating the impression that the Landers Theatre hosts a full company of spirits who continue to work and perform in a theater they have claimed as permanently their own.