Savannah Theatre

One of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States, the Savannah Theatre has survived three fires and a hurricane since opening on December 4, 1818. Three ghosts occupy the building: Betty, an actress killed in the 1827 fire who appears on opening nights; Ben, a boy trampled in the 1948 evacuation who tugs on the spotlight operator's shirt; and a nameless director who still shouts performance notes from backstage.

"Not now, I'm busy."

That's what house manager Dru Jones would say every time she felt a small tug on the back of her shirt while running the spotlight at the Savannah Theatre. The tugger was Ben, a boy who died in the 1948 fire and who, according to everyone who has worked the balcony, is still very interested in the light booth. Dru ran that spotlight for two years. Ben tugged on her shirt nearly every week. She'd tell him she was busy, he'd politely stop, and a few nights later he'd try again. She eventually told the story on Biography Channel's My Ghost Story.

The Savannah Theatre has been on Chippewa Square since December 4, 1818, making it one of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States. The grand opening was a double bill: a comedy called The Soldier's Daughter and a farce called Raising the Wind. British architect William Jay drew up the three-story original, mason Amos Scudder built it, and artist William Etty painted the interior with gilt eagles, green wreaths, and crimson panels. It sat at 222 Bull Street, and it has spent the better part of two centuries catching fire and rebuilding.

An 1827 fire killed an actress named Betty. A hurricane tore the roof off on August 31, 1898. A 1906 fire destroyed enough of the interior that William Jay's original facade got replaced with a new brick front. Then came 1948, and the penny.

Owner Fred Weis had been carrying a penny from 1818, the year the theater opened, found embedded in a brick wall. He carried it for years as a good luck charm. On a trip to New York he lost it. Within weeks, the Savannah Theatre burned. People in Savannah take superstitions seriously, and this one is hard to shrug off. The rebuild turned the place into an Art Deco movie house that reopened on October 21, 1950, showing Mister Eighty-Eight. Live theater didn't return until 2002.

Through all of that, three ghosts have stuck around.

Betty, the 1827 actress, died trapped under the stage from smoke inhalation. She shows up on opening nights, in full period costume, waiting behind the curtain like she's still part of the cast. Staff know to expect her. Ben, the balcony boy, was trampled during the chaos of the 1948 evacuation when 200 people rushed for narrow exits. The third ghost is a nameless former director who still shouts performance notes at actors from the shadows backstage. Cast members hear him regularly, critiquing their performances from somewhere they can never quite pinpoint.

Then there's the 1895 Savannah Morning News report. Police walking their night beat kept hearing applause and the sounds of a full performance coming from the locked, empty theater. They'd check the building, find nothing, and walk away. They eventually stopped checking and just logged the incidents. That was nearly a century before anyone started telling ghost stories as a tourism hook.

The dressing room has its own problems. The owner once opened up in the morning to find a small, perfectly circular burn hole in the floor. No char, no damage to anything else, the fire having apparently put itself out. Female dancers have described feeling something hostile in the same room, enough to send them running out before performances, a few of them only half-dressed.

The Savannah Theatre's survival is almost more impressive than its ghosts. Three fires, a hurricane, a complete architectural identity change, a pivot from live theater to movies and back to live theater. Two hundred years on Chippewa Square. Ben is still tugging on the spotlight operator's shirt, Betty is still waiting behind the curtain for opening night, and somewhere backstage, a director who never got the retirement memo is telling the actors they could do better.