The Haunting of New Zealand's St James Theatre

In today’s tale we’ll be visiting the strange occurrences of a supernatural nature that have occurred in the 110-year-old St James Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand.

I like sharing the tales of ghosts that are common to my own country because we are a young nation in the greater scheme of Western civilization. So often it is a given that we associate hauntings with centuries old castles and other ancient buildings; the edifices of whatever society left them to be occupied by generations of human interaction, whilst here in New Zealand the oldest European building is The Mission House at Kerikeri, built only in 1822. Even New Zealand’s indigenous people, the Maori, made these lands their home as early as the 1250s, a time when England’s Windsor Castle was already close to 300 years old! And yet my country maintains its own rich traditions of hauntings and happenings of the bizarre, proving that the age of a thing is not necessarily a prerequisite for ghostly appearances…

Located in New Zealand’s capital, and home of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, the St James Theatre has been described as the jewel in the crown of Wellington's flourishing theatre scene… and yet, while it has staged countless performances over the past century for the delight of many an audience, behind the scenes a different type of performance has unfolded, acted out by the unusual and unseen.

A common tale to spring from behind its curtains is that of Yuri, an apparent Russian Dancer who fell to his untimely demise from the theatre’s rigging, perhaps even pushed by Pasha, a fellow performer. I could not find reference to the year this grizzly event supposedly took place, and yet people have encountered his playful ghost ever since, messing about with the theatre lights after closing time, one time waiting until John Blake, a former theatre manager, was getting into his car to go home, before turning the lights back on again, forcing John to go back into the locked building to switch them off again! Other times causing the doors to swing open seemingly by themselves.

On not one but two separate occasions an unsuspecting projectionist was thrust out of harm’s way by an unseen force that he believes was the ghost of Yuri. The projectionist in question told the tale of how one night the auditorium lights went off by themselves, plunging him into darkness. He groped about in search of the light switch when suddenly something in the dark pushed him backwards. The lights came back on to reveal that he had been but a step away from falling into the orchestra pit, a fall that could have either seriously harmed the projectionist or ended his life in a similar fashion to Yuri’s unfortunate fate.

The second incident took place as the man was standing on stage with his child when a sudden plummeting beam threatened to crush them where they stood were it not for the unseen rescuer pushing them to safety, thrusting them a good 3 meters out from harm’s way. Was this Yuri or does this man owe his guardian angel a debt of gratitude?

Either way Yuri is not alone in this theatrical haunt as others have been encountered throughout its history… others like the wailing woman, who graces her listeners with loud lamentation when the theatre is engulfed in darkness. Apparently, once a struggling actress, she was in life booed from the stage, and rather than accept her humiliation she took her own life that very night. It seems that she suffers her afterlife taking the blame for many of the unfortunate incidents that have taken place in the playhouse since. Actresses have sprained their ankles, people have fallen from ladders or steps, while others have mysteriously contracted a last minute cold thus hindering their ability to perform…

Perhaps these things are just part and parcel with the nature of theatre life, but it is curious to note that even Sir Peter Jackson, the Director of the forever famous Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, himself encountered this unnerving female apparition when in his apartment, which was in the same vicinity as the haunted theatre, she made herself known one night at the foot of the director’s own bed!

During an interview on Britain’s Channel 4 TV he said, "I woke up one morning and there was a figure in the room, she was very scary, she had a screaming face, very accusatory, she was a lady about 50 years old," he went on to say that the experience was terrifying, she then glided across the room and disappeared into the wall. Evidently Sir Peter’s wife had seen exactly the same apparition in the same room only two years prior.

The specter of one Stan Andrews, a deceased American actor, makes his wheezing presence felt in the theatre’s corridors as he lurks backstage doing goodness knows what during a performance, and at other times when the stage is empty a tall man with no name lingers in the theatre, caught only in glimpses; and perhaps most bizarrely some have claimed the presence of a boy’s choir that by some accounts sang there during the second world war. After their last performance they boarded a boat never to be heard from again, except in ghostly form inside the haunted stands of the St James.

I personally find these stories fascinating. Probably because throughout my own career I have worked in both theatre and cinema and have heard time and time again the various rumors of disembodied whispers in theatres, random people sitting in a cinema after hours, seen for an instant and then suddenly deleted from view. In the theatre I currently work at one girl is adamant that a set of keys was forcefully pulled out from her pocket as she walked down a corridor, while on another occasion on the security camera I myself have witnessed a white streak follow a staff member down a flight of stairs. What is it about theatres and cinemas that apparently makes them a hot spot for unseen entities to play with our senses? Is it because they are a place designed for our imaginations to run wild or is it because in life these are the places we go to escape or to ignite our passions? Do the dead go there seeking the same escape or are the more sinister elements of the supernatural realm attracted to the dark deeds that sometimes happen in the shadows of such establishments? I wish I knew the answer.

What about you? Have you ever been to the St James and witness the things I’ve talked about in this video? Or have you gone to a theatre or cinema and encountered something that was unexplainable? I would certainly love to hear your story. Please share your tale with me at tellyourtalehere@gmail.com and maybe I can make it come alive in a future video. And until next time, break a leg.

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