One day I was looking around Youtube for videos about musical theatre when I came across one labeled ‘scariest theatre ghost EVER!!!’ I thought, what the heck, so I clicked on the video. It had just been posted a couple of days before and it only had about 4 views. The description read ‘Jill Edmund haunts our theatre.’

 

The video started with a camera set up on an empty stage, down right facing up left. The timer on the screen said it was about 1:30 in the morning. For the first ten, fifteen seconds nothing happens, then from the wings this beautiful woman dressed in nineteen twenties clothing walks onto the stage. No, a better description is that she glided onto the stage like the most graceful dancer you’ve ever seen. 

 

She stopped dead center stage and looked longingly out at the the empty audience. I was mesmerized by her sad, seductive gaze. This went on for about ten seconds or so when suddenly she turned toward the camera. I could not look away. I did not want to look away. It was if she was actually looking at me. Into me. Then with the same grace she entered the stage, she came towards the camera, and went right through it leaving the visual of of a once again empty stage.

 

Then without warning my computer started to reboot. This had happened before as there are sometimes updates that just reboot your computer when you least expect it but, this somehow felt different. 

 

Once my computer rebooted, I opened Youtube again and tried to look for that video, but no matter what I put into the search bar, I could not find it. I tried typing in the same words and phrases but it was like it was never there. I looked up the name Jill Edmund in Google and a few names did come up in Facebook, or it would ask if I meant to be searching for the actress Jill Esmond who was married to Sir Laurence Olivier, but there was nothing about a Jill Edmund anywhere on the internet.

 

Now about month or so passed and I eventually forgot about that video because Laurie and I were ramping up for the creation of our virtual theatre. One day we were on the platform checking it out when my monitors started to flicker. It was weird but maybe there was a loose connection somewhere. Maybe I kicked something under my desk.  But what caught my eye was the number in the top left corner of the screen. It showed the number three, and that meant that there were three people in the virtual theatre, which was impossible since Laurie and I were the only ones who had signed in that day. The theatre can have multiple floors and I had set it up to have a second one for testing purposes. That’s when I noticed that there was a number one by the 2nd floor icon. That ment that there was someone on that floor. I pointed this out to Laurie and told her that I was going to check it out. Maybe my friend Jarrod had logged in and was up there. 

 

I clicked the number two on the elevator icon and when I appeared at the table I was assigned to there was the image of the woman from the video. The image of Jill Edmund. She had that same sad, seductive gaze. But how was the ghost from the video here in the theatre? I went back down to the first level to get Laurie and try to explain what I saw. She thought I was crazy but she had seen the same number one by the 2nd floor icon that I had. We both went up to the second floor, but the ghost was gone. The platform now indicated only two people.

 

I told Laurie the story of the Youtube video, the rebooting of the computer and the complete lack of evidence on the internet that this woman ever existed and as I was relaying my story we saw that the two in the top left corner had once again changed to the number three. There was someone now on the first floor. We both quickly clicked the elevator icon to take us to the first floor and when we arrived at the table I knew I wasn’t crazy. I saw on Lauries’ face the same shock that had registered on mine not minutes ago. The ghost of Jill Edmund was there on our screen. And then, she wasn’t. She dissipated like the applause at the end of a performance. She was gone but not forgotten.

 

We knew right then and there that we had to name the theatre after her, for all the greatest theatres in the world have a ghost to watch over it. Now, Jill doesn’t always appear at every event, but when she does, that production in our virtual theatre seems to have a certain je ne sais quoi about them. If you are ever at an event, watch for her and say hello to the ghost in the theatre.