Theatre Spirit Activity

My old high school had a pack of ghosts. I'll tell you about my experience with one of them. I held off telling this one for good reason. The evidence is fairly flimsy and not the kind of thing I like to call proof but it's an interesting story so I hope you like it.

As I said our school was very old. It is the school which is in the famous Australian legend of Picnic at Hanging Rock which some people may know about. It has several known hauntings. Since I had only a single experience with one I might as well briefly tell you about the other ones; they're worth it, I think.

One was a White Lady who was known to be seen wandering on the croquet lawn late at night. The principal saw her several times and he was a credible man. Above the lawn is the Tower. The legend is that she was a school girl who cast herself to her death after being impregnated by the stable boy. I don't know if the story has any truth to it. Our soccer oval had the coach house on it originally. 3 graves were found there when the oval was being shaped. There have been reports of the sound of horses and voices down there at night.

My own experience was with the third. My drama teacher called her Penthesilea; a name coined from a line of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in which Sir Toby Belch bids Penthesilea goodnight. Our drama teacher developed a ritual of saying good night to her. The drama office was in an annexe overlooking the theatre. It's less of a theatre, more of a hall set up for dramatic studies. The previous drama head working late would hear crying from the back stage area and investigate only to find nothing and the crying would cease until she left the area then it would continue. The current teacher, my teacher for 3 years only once saw her after making the mistake of turning off the lights from his office before getting to the outer door of the hall; something he never did for fear of seeing her. He didn't really like to talk about it. Now, onto my own experience.

We were putting on a play which required a large amount of weekend rehearsal for me because I had a main role. This would have been in 2004 and I would have been 17 going on 18. There were four of us in the building on a gloomy Saturday. It was cold; the school is on a mountain in the bush in an area which often gets snowed on in winter which is unusual for Australia. The character I played was one of three mains who occupied the stage area. One particular scene I was not in and since we were quite a way into the rehearsal process, I was occupying the area where I was supposed to be during the real show rather than sneaking off front stage for a coffee and a biscuit. The area was a small unlit costume room off side of the stage. It was used for storage of the usual junk which you would usually find floating around a theatre. I put a stool in there and sat waiting to come on. The other actors were blocking fairly vigorously and were taking a long time and I was sitting alone in the dark in the dingy costume room. I have to admit, I dozed off for a minute as the whole process was quite stressful and tiring. I think it was this relaxation on my part which drew her out.

I awoke sharply because the room had gotten overwhelmingly cold. As I previously mentioned it was a freezing day but inside it was temperate. In the tiny room I was sitting, the temperature plummeted. Immediately I felt really uneasy but didn't immediately think anything of it. Then all of a sudden I knew she was there. It was an unbelievably strange experience. I was definitely awake, facing the door and just felt her in the top right corner of the room behind me. I knew it was a female and I knew her presence was up in an unreachable area of the room but for some reason it felt so sensible for a moment or two before I was overwhelmed, jumped up and ran from the room without looking back. That was the first time I felt her presence in that room. During one of the actual performances of the show I felt like I wasn't alone back there.

I don't like to talk about "feeling" things. I'm not sensitive to anything especially not feelings. I have never felt anything like this before or since. I feel that the spirit was in fact merely curious. There was absolutely no hostility. I was hesitant about sharing the story because I didn't actually see anything with my eyes but at the same time I just knew she was there with me. The only real evidence I have was the overwhelming coldness which occurred suddenly and a cold spot is not exactly proof. There was enough evidence of experiences in the building to warrant me believing it without thinking that I'm crazy or that the whole thing was imaginary. It was the closest I have had to a conclusive experience so I wanted to share it. The place is a wonderful historical area and has many great stories associated with it so it felt appropriate to tell it.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.