The Haunted Opera House

Macon, GA Grand Opera House

This is a crazy house. The theatre is on the second floor. Like Butte, MT we had to load in and out via a lift.

Except in this case the lift was on the backstage wall behind the gondolas. So this is the scene during intermission with everyone trying to access stuff stored behind our gondolas.

Meanwhile, Wigs and wardrobe shared the Actor hang out/Green Room space with our drummer. He didn't fit into the orchestra pit so he had to be remoted from the Green Room.
This is the only picture I have. Our drummer was set up just to the right of the picture. I can't believe that I somehow neglected to take a picture of his kit stuffed into our room...

But the House is absolutely beautiful.

Check out the fire escape...

Aren't those flowers lovely?

And when the house is open, they “turn on” the stars in the sky. However, notice that the painted sky stops at that line?

Segregation.

This was the “Coloreds Only”section of the theatre. Look at how narrow those seats are, even though they are beautifully crafted. From this segregation section you can see where the sky just stops. It's probably the best visual metaphor for segregation that I've ever seen.

And on top of all of that, the house was supposedly haunted. We got a ghost tour of the place, including the Thunder Room – the room where they used to beat on pieces of sheet metal to create thunder effects during vaudeville shows – where someone supposedly died.
One of the stage techs took us all the way up to the wooden grid, 77 feet in the air and showed us little rooms back there. Very creepy...

But in other news, I had a great pimento cheese sandwich and Georgia pecan pie a'la mode for lunch preceeded by boiled peanuts. Delish!

Plus we got a hotel room and a 2 night stay. Even though the showers refused to stay at one temperature – hot! Cold! Warm! Warm! Cold! HOOOOOT! Warm! - it was still the best night ever after a string of one nighters.