‘Ghost light’ tradition at Philly theaters has taken on a COVID-19 meaning of hope

Theater isn’t dark, not completely. COVID-19′s arrival may have left spotlights and fresnels still, bereft of scenery and actors to light. But at the center of many a stage in Philadelphia and beyond sits an ordinary lightbulb. It burns all day and night. And waits.

The ghost light has long been used as a safety measure in theaters, planted on stage between rehearsals or performances to provide just enough light to keep workers from tripping over sets or falling into the orchestra pit. The single unadorned bulb has also stoked the imaginations of those within its glow. Some say it’s there to thwart ghosts who might sabotage the show.

Now, though, as the COVID-19 era stretches on and darkness lengthens for many theaters, the ghost light has taken on new significance: the promise of being able to gather in the flesh once again.

“For theater people, it has had a broader symbolic meaning for a long time,” says Lantern Theater Company executive director Stacy Maria Dutton. “Prometheus stole fire from the gods and put this small ember in a reed and gave it to mankind for betterment. Today it is our eternal fire, our assertion that we will return to live performance and welcome audiences back.”

The ghost light’s new message is emanating from stages in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Florida, California, and across the globe. Sarah Rasmussen, artistic director of Princeton’s McCarter Theatre Center, says that she will sometimes walk into the McCarter’s Matthews Theatre just to spend a moment in the presence of the ghost light and remind herself that live performances will be back someday.

“It can be really powerful to see that on stage,” she says.

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It might not look like much — not compared to modern feats of stagecraft. Typically, a ghost light is a single bulb atop a plain pole. It could be any no-frills household floor lamp without a shade. It doesn’t cast a lot of light, but enough to allow workers entering the theater to move around safely without stage or house lights.

Not every theater has a ghost light in use, but many do. The Academy of Music, Merriam, Wilma, Walnut Street, Forrest, and McCarter have them, as do smaller theaters.

“I think every theater I’ve worked in has had one,” says Nell Bang-Jensen, artistic director of Theatre Horizon in Norristown.

Normally, stagehands might put out a ghost light to run between, say, the end of a Sunday matinee and a Tuesday night performance.

Now, what was once a brief sprint has become a marathon.

The ghost light at the Arden Theatre Company was placed on its main stage March 13 after a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire. Today, both the light and sets sit there as a kind of still-life tribute to theater as it once was.

When the COVID-19 shutdown began, it was the Arden production staff that took it upon itself to put up the ghost light, “and it totally made me cry,” says Arden managing director Amy L. Murphy.

(She made the decision to unplug the light a couple of months later since its constant use made her “a little nervous.”)

As a symbol, the ghost light “makes a lot of sense,” says LaNeshe Miller-White, executive director of Theatre Philadelphia, the region’s theater membership group. “We need that kind of glimmer of hope, that this will be over one day, that we will be back in theaters someday.”

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Hope is especially needed now. For months, as COVID-19 vaccines have come available, a lot of groups have operated on the assumption that live theater would be reunited with non-virtual audiences this fall. Now, with vaccine distribution less than smooth and virus variants appearing, it is less clear when a live audience might once again be possible.

“People are holding onto 2022, that second half of the season, to be back. That is still the hope,” says Miller-White.

And so for now, ghost lights are working overtime.

“It is just always on,” says Hannah Opdenaker, director of programming and rentals at Christ Church Neighborhood House, of the ghost light in its third-floor performance space. The venue has lost 95% of its bookings in the pandemic. “It’s really important for us symbolically to keep it on.”

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Philadelphia actor and playwright Ang Bey has thought about how ghost lights have continued during this “great pause,” and how, after the pandemic, theater will reemerge recontextualized by society as it has evolved in the past year.

“There are so many new conversations about rebuilding theater, breaking down what we had before and finding something new, and the ghost light, holding onto that as a tradition can be symbolic of something new, too,” says Bey. “Ghost lights have historical context, and we can recognize them from back in the day, but also the light they give off can carry us into the future and should represent the newness that will happen when we all come back together in an enclosed space.”

You might think in the age of tech that this vestige of old-school theater would be an endangered species — a Princess Telephone in a world of iThis and iThat.

What keeps the old ghost light going? Sentimentality?

There are practical reasons for keeping it, says Anne Ewers, president and CEO of the Kimmel Center, where ghost lights are used in the Academy of Music and Merriam Theater. A standard lightbulb that plugs into a regular outlet allows it to take over from more expensive theater lighting that would otherwise be used.

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But there are other forces at work, she says.

“What I love about the theater is the traditions and the superstitions and all those things, so the ghost light is meant to protect the artist and audience and theater from danger, bad luck, and ghosts,” she says.

“It just belongs to the lore and tradition of the theater, and it’s not going to change,” says Walnut Street Theatre president and producing artistic director Bernard Havard. “If you tried to tell a stagehand that you were going to be without it, you’d have an insurrection on your hands.”

In fact, when the McCarter opened its Berlind Theatre in 2003, it had, instead of a ghost light, a light mounted in the ceiling shining onto the stage when the theater wasn’t in use. “Within a week, the crew wanted an old-fashioned ghost light,” says McCarter stage supervisor Stephen Howe.

“We have apps that would allow me to take out my phone and turn on all the lights,” says Howe. “But I’ve never found anybody, from the youngest theater professional to the oldest, who doesn’t love the ghost light. It’s a powerful thing.”