In Brief
The Savannah Theatre in Savannah, Georgia has burned and been rebuilt for two centuries. Up in the balcony, staff who run the spotlight say a boy named Ben keeps tugging their clothes. One of them told the story on national TV.
The Full Story
At the Savannah Theatre on Chippewa Square, the people who run the spotlight keep getting tugged. A small pull on the back of the shirt, the hair, the sleeve — there and gone. The staff call the boy Ben, and they tie him to the balcony, where the light is.
House manager Dru Jones worked that spotlight for two years. Roughly once a week, she said, she'd feel the tug. She'd answer the same way every time — "Not now, I'm busy" — and the tugging would stop, and a few nights later it would start again. Jones told that story on the Biography Channel's *My Ghost Story*. By every account from the people who work the balcony, Ben isn't trying to scare anyone. He's interested in the light. He wants to help run it.
Where he comes from is harder to pin down. As the tour tells it, Ben was a boy who died in the theatre's worst fire, in 1948 — overcome by smoke, or trampled in the panic. No record confirms that any child died there. The boy exists in the lore, not the casualty rolls.
What did happen on that square is a long run of fire. The theatre opened in 1818, designed by the British architect William Jay — one of the oldest continually operating theatres in the country. A hurricane tore off its roof in 1898. Fire damaged it in 1906. Fire took it again in 1948, and the rebuilt movie house reopened in 1950 with a screening of *Mister 880*. It went dark as a cinema in 1981 and came back to live performance in 2002.
An actress in 19th-century costume turns up on opening nights, the staff say — Betty, though the fire that killed her and her real name are tour legend, lost, no archive behind them. A director shouts notes from backstage at performances he'll never see finished.
But it's Ben who reaches out. Just a small tug, once a week, asking to work the light.
