Palace Theatre

A beautifully restored 1915 theater in downtown Manchester, featured on the TV show Ghost Hunters.

A woman named Mary haunts the backstage of the Palace Theatre, and she has been making things go wrong on stage since long before anyone thought to investigate. Greek immigrant Victor Charas began construction on the Palace Theatre in June 1914 with the help of general contractor Henry Macropol and architects Leon Lempert and Son, completing the project in under a year. The theater opened on April 9, 1915, fashioned after its namesake in New York City, and was promoted as "the only first-class theatre in New Hampshire that was fireproof and air-conditioned." The air conditioning consisted of fans blowing air over large blocks of ice stored beneath the stage -- a solution that kept audiences cool and gave the building's underbelly a perpetual chill that has never entirely dissipated.

Through the 1920s and into the 1930s, the Palace hosted touring vaudeville companies with performers who would become legends: Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope, Harry Houdini, the Marx Brothers, and Red Skelton all played the Manchester stage. The theater transitioned to film and then back to live performance, surviving the decades through community support and periodic renovation.

The primary ghost is a woman in white named Mary, who lingers backstage and in the wings. She is most frequently seen by performers and crew members during shows, standing in the shadows just offstage, watching the performance from a vantage point no audience member could access. She does not interact with the living directly, but her presence seems to correlate with technical malfunctions -- lights that malfunction at critical moments, sound equipment that cuts out inexplicably, props that are not where they were placed.

Some believe Mary's identity may be connected to a tragedy that occurred on January 4, 1984, when a fire broke out in an apartment building adjoining the theater. A woman died in that fire, and the proximity of her death to the Palace -- the buildings share walls -- has led paranormal investigators to theorize that her spirit migrated into the theater she may have loved in life. Palace Theatre President Peter Ramsey has spoken publicly about the theater's haunted reputation, sharing this account during the production of a television episode.

The haunting extends beyond Mary. A male voice has been captured on electronic voice recordings, described as yelling at people -- an aggressive, commanding presence that contrasts sharply with Mary's silent watching. Paranormal activity concentrates in the balcony and backstage areas, where cold spots appear without explanation, footsteps echo through empty corridors, and the sensation of being watched is strong enough that crew members avoid certain areas when working alone at night.

The Palace Theatre was featured on the television show "Ghost Hunters," and the NH Paranormal Research Group has conducted investigations at the venue, finding evidence they describe as consistent with an active haunting. The theater continues to operate as Manchester's premier performing arts venue, seating over 800 in its ornate interior. Mary, for her part, continues to watch every show from the wings -- a critic who has never left her seat.