The Show Never Ends… Haunted Theaters of the South

We tour three Southern theaters—Memphis’s Orpheum, Austin’s Paramount, and Birmingham’s Alabama—where grandeur collides with ghost lore through eyewitness accounts, strange lights, and echoes that refuse to fade. We weigh how architecture, ritual, and memory might make stages feel truly lived‑in, even after closing time.

• Mary in seat C5 at the Orpheum and balcony sightings
• Cold spots, giggles, and performer testimonies in Memphis
• Paramount’s man in white and flapper‑era mirror figure
• Ghost light tradition meeting safety and superstition
• Alabama Theater’s phantom reels, applause, and organ notes
• Why theaters hold emotional energy and residual stories
• Upcoming haunted history schedule and lighthouse teaser

Follow vivid nightmares on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube for bonus stories, visuals, and behind-the-scenes chills

Send us a text

Support the show

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Some theaters never go dark.

(00:02):
Even when the lights are off,there are footsteps on the
stage, whispers in the wings,and shadows in the balcony
waiting for an encore.
Welcome to Vivid Nightmares.
I'm your host, Bridget Denise,and this October, you're getting
twice the chills, hauntedhistory episodes dropping every
Thursday, along with our regulartrue crime episodes every

(00:25):
Friday.
That's two nights of nightmaresevery week, all spooky season
long.
Last week we visitedCharleston's Dock Street, New
Orleans Sanger, andChattanooga's Tivoli.
Tonight the spotlight swingsonto three more southern stages
where history and hauntingsshare the bill.
The Orpheum in Memphis, theParamount in Austin, and the

(00:47):
Alabama Theater in Birmingham.
Get comfortable in your seat,the show is about to begin.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00):
Whispers of truth.
Twisted with fear.

SPEAKER_00 (01:21):
The Orpheum Theater is Memphis's crown jewel.
Built in 1928 for a staggering$1.6 million, it was part of the
Orpheum Circuit, a chain oflavish vaudeville houses across
the U.S., with chandeliersimported from Czechoslovakia,
Italian marble, and gold leafdetailing.

(01:41):
It was designed to overwhelm thesenses.
But the Orpheum has a pastthat's just as dramatic as
anything staged there.
The original Grand Opera House,built in 1890, was destroyed in
a fire in 1923.
That fire left its mark both onthe city and, some say, on the

(02:01):
land itself.
The Hauntings, Mary in Seat C5.
A little girl struck by a car inthe 1920s outside the theater
appears often during rehearsals.
She's seen in a white dress withlong brown curls.
The man in the balcony.
Some staff speak of a tallfigure watching silently from

(02:22):
the upper levels.
Cold spots and phantom giggles.
Ushers report sudden icy aircurrents rushing through
otherwise warm rooms.
Giggles and running footstepsecho when the theater is empty.
During intermission, one of thestaff asked if we'd let a child
into the balcony.
No tickets sold, no childrenseen at the doors.

(02:43):
But several guests swore theysaw a little girl climbing the
stairs.
She was never found.
Testimony from a performer.
Said, I was rehearsing my scene,and there she was, C5.
A little girl watching me likeshe belonged there.
I turned to reset.

(03:04):
When I looked back, the seat wasempty.
I'll never forget her eyes.
Mary isn't malicious.
She's playful, tugging atcostumes, flickering lights, and
giggling in the wings.
Some performers even say theyfeel safer with her nearby,
still, sitting in seat C5?
Most people won't risk it.

(03:24):
Our next theater, opened in 1915as the Majestic Theater, later
renamed the Paramount.
This Austin landmark became oneof Texas's cultural
cornerstones.
It hosted silent films,vaudeville acts, and later live
performances.
Houdini himself performed here,so did Catherine Hepburn,

(03:46):
Gregory Peck, and countlessothers.
But the Paramount's glamourhides a century of spectral
stories, hauntings.
The man in white, seen pacingthe upper balcony, believed to
be a former projectionist or aman who died during
construction.
A phantom actress appears indressing room mirrors, adorned

(04:07):
in roaring twenties fashion,pearls, feathers, red lipstick,
disembodied voices, stage handshear lines whispered in empty
rehearsal halls.
Ghost light glows, a strangeblue-white glow sometimes
appears on stage when thetheater is locked.
Testimony from A.A.

(04:27):
projectionist.
Said, I was alone in the boothwhen I saw him, a man in white
walking the balcony.
He turned and stepped into theshadows.
I checked every door, locked, Iwas the only one inside.
Testimony from a actress, said,I glanced in the mirror, she was
there behind me, smiling,dressed like it was 1925.

(04:51):
When I spun around, gone.
But the scent of perfumelingered.
Roses, old perfume.
Many theaters keep a single bulbburning on stage, a ghost light.
It's meant as a safety measure,but tradition says it's to keep
spirits appeased.
At the Paramount, sometimes theghost light doesn't just glow,

(05:12):
it flickers, pulsing likesomeone standing in its path.
For the last theater on thelist.
In 1927, my hometown ofBirmingham opened the Alabama
Theater as a silent moviepalace.
Built for Paramount Pictures, itseated over 2,500 people and
cost$1.5 million.
A fortune at the time.

(05:33):
The style?
Lavish Moorish and Mediterraneanrevival.
Inside, gold leaf, red velvet,and a mighty whirlitzer organ
that could shake the wholebuilding.
The Alabama was more than atheater.
It was Birmingham's living room,hosting everything from movies
to community events.
But beneath the grandeur liesits ghostly reputation.

(05:55):
The hauntings, a phantomprojectionist.
In the booth, real start andstop on their own.
The room grows icy as if someonebreathes on your neck.
The man in overalls, seen onstage during rehearsals,
vanishing into the wings,believed to be a worker who died
during construction.

(06:15):
Disembodied applause.
Performers stop mid-rehearsal asapplause thunders from empty
seats.
The Phantom organ.
Staff claim the mighty Wurlitzerplays faint notes late at night,
when no one is seated at thekeys.
Testimony from a projectionistsaid, it happened three times,

(06:36):
the reels started rollingthemselves, the whole booth
dropped in temperature, I couldsee my breath, that was it for
me.
I told them I wasn't workingnights anymore.
Testimony from a singer said, wewere doing a sound check when
applause erupted from thebalcony.
It was so real we bowed, but thehouse was empty, just me, the

(06:56):
mic, and shadows.
Testimony from a janitor, said,the organ played two notes by
itself, just two echoing throughthe whole place.
I locked the doors and walkedout, haven't worked a shift
alone since.
The Alabama's ghosts aren't justresidual, they're interactive.

(07:17):
Applauding, playing, remindingBirmingham that the show for
them never ended.
The Orpheum in Memphis, whereMary, the little girl, still
takes her favorite seat.
The Paramount in Austin, whereechoes of the roaring twenties
dance through the mirrors, theAlabama in Birmingham, where
phantom projectionists keep thereels turning and unseen hands

(07:41):
clap from the shadows.
Theaters are vessels, built tohold joy, grief, and energy.
They're designed for emotion,and emotion lingers.
When the curtain falls, when thehouse empties, the stories
remain, and sometimes, so do thepeople.
So next time you sit in adarkened theater and feel the

(08:02):
weight of eyes on you from thebalcony, ask yourself, who else
is watching the show?
That's the end of tonight'shaunted spotlight.
And don't forget, all throughOctober, I'm dropping haunted
history specials every Thursday,along with our regular true
crime episodes every Friday.
Two nights, one, restless sleep.

(08:24):
Follow vivid nightmares onInstagram, TikTok, and YouTube
for bonus stories, visuals, andbehind-the-scenes chills.
Next week we leave the velvetseats behind and climb the
spiral staircases of SouthernLighthouses, from St.
Augustine to Tybee Island, wherekeepers never abandon their
posts, even in death.

(08:46):
Until then, sleep well, if youcan.