The Observer hunts ghosts at The Players Theatre

Four old ladies cloaked in period attire sit within the first few rows of The Players Theatre chitchatting. In the middle of sewing an ensemble for an upcoming production, a costume designer overhears them and peeks through the curtains. She calls out to the women and asks who they are and what they are doing in the audience, but they completely ignore her. When she starts inching down the stage stairs to inquire further, she sees the women have vanished.

About two-and-a-half years ago, Artistic Director Jeffery Kin was standing backstage alone when he saw what appeared to be a child’s hands pressing against the back of the scrim — a curtain that is transparent from one side. Thinking the hands might belong to one of his co-worker’s children, he questioned him, only to find out the man had not brought his children to the theater that day.

He saw the hands several times over the next few weeks and also felt a tugging on his clothing below the knee. When psychic Rosemary Altea visited the theater for the opening of “Smile,” the two sat down together. When he told her of the handprints, she informed him that someone in his family had miscarried a child. “My mother,” he answered.

“Rosemary told me that (what would have been) my brother, who was calling himself ‘David,’ came to me in child form because I wouldn’t have been able to make the connection if he came to me as an adult,” Kin said. “I had been overworking myself, and she told me to think of him as my angel. And in my heart I knew what she was going to say. A sense of well-being came over me.”

Altea told The Players Theatre staff that the theater was filled with spirits, but that they were all “good.” They were people who had been patrons of the theater or who had worked there and had fond memories of their time at The Players.

It’s stories like these that prompted the Sarasota Observer to contact Ghosthunters of SRQ and go on our own quest for an up-close encounter with paranormal activity.

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It’s 11 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23, just minutes before our four-hour ghost hunt begins. Between Maggie and Marko Sumney, co-founders of Ghosthunters of SRQ, and the four Observer staffers — Jessica Luck, Rachel O’Hara, Mallory Gnaegy and myself, we’ve got four oversized flashlights, six mini flashlights, four tape recorders, two walkie-talkies, two EMF (electromagnetic field) meters, two cameras and a video camera with night vision. And, just in case, a hot pink blanket, trail mix and holy water.

Managing Director Michelle Bianchi Pingel meets us for a walkthrough of the theater before shutting off the lights and locking us in. While in the rehearsal room — a room that Altea warned the staff that the spirits did not want to be painted black — Pingel notices her watch has stopped. She’s not terribly upset and brushes it off, but we all feel a little chill.

We break up into groups of three. Marko Sumney leads O’Hara and Gnaegy to the back of the theater, with a plan to head upstairs, toward the costumes.

Maggie Sumney, Luck and I head into the theater and tiptoe down a row of chairs.

“That light just went off,” Luck says, pointing to the stage. “There was a light on where the set is, and it just turned off.”

Sumney radios her husband, who starts flipping switches to see if he accidentally turned off that particular light. Nope …

Meanwhile, the other group hasn’t even climbed the first flight of stairs because their ghost meter has spiked. The girls begin asking the possible ghost questions: “What’s your name?” “Were you in any shows?” “How old are you?” “How did you die?”

“We were in full-on reporter mode and were hoping that somewhere on our recorders or in my pictures, we would hear or see something — anything paranormal,” O’Hara says.

Luck and I start walking as close together as possible without bumping into one another — neither of us wants to be in the back of the group, just in case something scary creeps up on us. We make our way to a room where the ghost hunter group has recorded activity before. We place the EMF meter in the middle of room, next to a recorder, and start asking questions into the air. Then the waiting game begins. But it doesn’t take long.

The other group makes its way to the prop area upstairs, an open space filled with chairs, couches, props, clothing and mannequins. Marko Sumney’s walkie-talkie suddenly rings, so he radios his wife, who is with Luck and me in the costume room.

“Yeah, what do you need?” he asks.

“I didn’t call you,” she says.

“Well, my walkie-talkie rang,” he says.

“So did mine,” she answers.

Perhaps a spirit is playing tricks on us. Pingel says she can atest to that.

“Years ago, I was up in the costume loft,” Pingel says. “Nothing should be moving on its own. There’s no vent or air. As I was turning to leave, it was like somebody moved their hand down the rack and all of the clothing moved at the same time.”

We radio the other group and meet in the rehearsal room — the room that the theater painted black, despite what Altea told them. They covered most of the walls with pink satin curtains, though, and the spirits haven’t seemed to complain too much.

O’Hara holds up the EMF meter, and it spikes. The red light on the end of the meter blinks, speeds up, drops off and then returns. She hands it off to Gnaegy, but the light disappears until she hands it back to O’Hara. It seems to work in my hands or anywhere near me, as well.

“It apparently has a thing for blondes,” Gnaegy jokes.

After countless minutes of blinking lights, we wander into the green room, where the Players cast breaks for snacks. Gnaegy, Luck and I plop down on the leather couch and O’Hara grabs a chair while the Sumneys slip a CD with past investigation recordings into a boom-box. There’s crackling, various sounds and whispered voices saying phrases such as “I’m cold” and “Go home.”

“I’m glad we didn’t hear that before we started,” Gnaegy says.

It’s nearing 3 a.m., and the six of us form a circle center stage and ask some last questions of the potential spirits. Marko Sumney holds the dowsing rods in his hands and challenges a spirit to cross the rods. Nothing happens. The Sumneys say that some nights they get hits and on others, the ghosts are quiet.

Before we leave, we ask any entities that may have been drifting within the walls of the theater not to follow us home.

And there is one more task to do. Marko Sumney places a lamp with a lit lightbulb and no shade in the middle of the stage. As is tradition in theater, a stage manager will leave on the nightlight, or equity lamp, before leaving for the evening. The lamp left on is also known as a “ghost light.”

Upon exiting the theater as the crash door closes behind us, the lamp’s glow casts a soft light over the empty theater.

IF YOU DARE
Join The Players staff and local ghost story author Kim Cool for an inside tour of the haunted theater at 11 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29. Visit the theater’s backstage nooks and crannies and watch demonstrations by Ghosthunters of SRQ. Tickets cost $15. Call 365-2494.  

By the numbers
6 — mini flashlights
4 — oversized flashlights
4 — tape recorders
3 — cameras
2 — walkie-talkies
2 — two EMF readers
1 — night vision video camera
1 — blanket
0 — number of ghosts spotted