C-5, Orpheum, Memphis, TN

I grew up in and around Memphis, TN, and (like anywhere else) you hear that this place is haunted and that house, that weird noises have been heard down here, and so forth.  Depending on the strength or number of the stories, you may believe them and you may not.

So I had heard that The Orpheum was supposed to be haunted, but aren't all theaters?   If anything, a theater that wasn’t haunted could be thought of as not worth its salt.  But I never paid much attention to the stories and only heard them once in a while.

It turns out that a lot of people have reported seeing a young girl, about 12 years old, with braided, brown hair seated in Row C, Seat 5.   She is dressed in a white schoolgirl outfit with long, black stockings.

The New York company of Fiddler on the Roof performed a seance in the theater in 1977 and U of M students (then MSU) of a parapsychology class investigated it some time later.  They claimed to have contacted the ghost, whose name is Mary, and discovered that she had died in 1921 from a falling accident nowhere near the theater, and had nothing to do with the place during her lifetime.

Some people have theorized that Mary wanted to be an actress and that's why her spirit was drawn to the place.