Whooooo goes there?

Is the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre haunted? Some say yes Any theatre has its ghost tales, and the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre is no different. Over the years, performers and staff have reported many a spooky tale from the basement, including apparitions in the costume bank rooms and hallways.

Built on the former site of the Shannon Munn Memorial Orphanage (later the Church of England Orphanage), there have been tales of ghostly children, including a little boy in a red coat running through the halls, and a child being carried in a woman’s arms. “I would occasionally catch glimpses in the corner of my eye of children running between the spaces in the pillars of the balcony on slow nights when the theatre wasn’t sold out,” one former employee wrote on NL Explained, local folklorist and storyteller Dale Jarvis’ website, in response to a tale of a ghost sighting at the ACC.

There have been stories of singing ghosts, ghosts turning on and off the lights in theatre, and ghosts kicking seats.

Jarvis himself wrote about an e-mail he had received from another ACC employee, who had been working in the basement when she saw someone out of the corner of her eye.

“The person that I’d seen was wearing dark colours,” Jarvis quoted the woman as saying. “I had the impression of something resembling a nun’s habit.”

Do you have a spooky story from the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre? Let us know! E-mail tara. bradbury@thetelegram.com