Haunted Sites
Summoning the spirits…
Savannah Theatre
Opened in 1818 on Chippewa Square, one of America's oldest operating theater sites, with a long run of fires and mishaps. Staff and visitors report ghostly occupants, and paranormal investigations are held inside.
- Address
- 222 Bull St, Savannah, GA 31401
- Hours
- Check the official website for current hours.
- Admission
- Free (public space).
- Access
- open to public (theater; shows and paranormal-investigation events)
- Website
- savannahtheatre.com
- Phone
- +1-912-233-7764
The real history
About the place
The Savannah Theatre, at 222 Bull Street on Chippewa Square, opened at 5:30 p.m. on December 4, 1818, with the comedy The Soldier's Daughter and the farce Raising the Wind. It is one of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States. The original building was designed by William Jay, architect of the Telfair and Owens-Thomas houses, and built by the mason Amos Scudder. In the 1850s and '60s it was sometimes called the Athenaeum. On March 21, 1861, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens gave his infamous 'Cornerstone Speech' here, declaring slavery the cornerstone of the new Confederacy.
Over two centuries its stage has hosted, according to Ghost City Tours, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, W.C. Fields, Lillian Russell, Ellen Terry and Edwin Booth, among many others. A hurricane on August 31, 1898 tore off parts of the roof and flooded the auditorium. Fires in 1906 and 1948 led to major rebuilds, and after the second one the theater took on its present Art Deco look. It spent years as a movie house.
Since 2002 it has been a live-performance venue again, staging mostly music revues. It is open for shows, with tickets from the box office.
Local legend
The Ghost Story
Told here as local lore, the way guides, books and visitors tell it. These are legends, not established fact.
Two centuries of performances have left the Savannah Theatre with, as Ghost City Tours puts it, 'many lost souls,' and staff speak of three in particular. The first is Betty, said to have been an actress who loved the stage too much to leave it. She is seen behind the curtain in costume, waiting to step out for the performance of her life. The second is a boy called Ben, who haunts the balcony and plays pranks on the spotlight operator. The third, and most notorious, is known simply as 'The Director.' Having spent his life behind the scenes, he is now said to relish the spotlight, and he can be heard shouting critiques at the actors.
The stories go back a long way. Ghost City Tours cites an 1895 Savannah Morning News report that police on patrol often heard applause and commotion from the theater after it had closed for the night. They found no one inside, and eventually stopped checking. The company says another article from that year described the owner arriving early one morning to find the house empty and in order, until he checked the dressing rooms. Fires, a hurricane and two hundred years of opening nights have kept the stories coming.
History highlights
- Dates to 1818
- Architect: William Jay
Tips
- Featured on 5 ghost tours; see the links below.
