The Show Goes On
Every theater has a moment, just before the curtain rises, when the house goes dark and everyone holds their breath. At The Music Hall in Portsmouth, that moment has been repeated for well over a century.
The audiences change. The performers change. The building stays. And the people who spend their nights inside it, ushers, stagehands, performers, and longtime patrons, will tell you that the building remembers.
A Theater Rises on Chestnut Street
Built on Older Ground
Before there was a theater on Chestnut Street, the site held a Baptist meetinghouse, an almshouse, and a prison. After an earlier Portsmouth hall was lost to fire, members of the Peirce family of the Seacoast financed a new one.
The Music Hall opened on January 30, 1878, to a sold-out house.
Frank Jones and the Twentieth Century
In 1901 Frank Jones, the Portsmouth brewer and railroad baron, renovated the theater, adding the proscenium arch and the stage house. In 1945 the building was sold at auction and renamed The Civic, and for decades it served mainly as a movie theater.
A National Treasure Restored
The theater was later returned to its original name and purpose. In the early 2000s it was designated an "American Treasure" and received a federal preservation grant, and its restored historic auditorium reopened on September 8, 2007. Today the nonprofit Music Hall presents music, film, comedy, and talks in an auditorium of roughly 900 seats.
The Ghost Stories of The Music Hall
Cold Spots and Music from an Empty Stage
In a 2018 New Hampshire Public Radio feature on Portsmouth's haunted history, the theater's reported activity was described as "cold spots, strange twinkling lights, and music playing from an empty stage." People have also reported seeing audience members appear in the seats wearing clothes that do not belong to this time period, patrons, perhaps, who never left after the final bow.
The Phantom in the Lobby
The lobby holds a painting of a man known as "The Phantom," a fitting mascot for a building with so many stories. Local historian and ghost tour guide Roxie Zwicker told NHPR that what delights her about The Music Hall is "the variety of the stories that you have here, almost as varietal as the performers that have been here over the years." To her, "It's almost as if the building itself is a living, breathing entity."
Footsteps on the Stairs
Some of the stories involve footsteps on the staircases when no one is there. Zwicker offers both possibilities: "It's an old building. Is it still settling from 150 years ago? Or is it someone going up the staircase as they would 100 years ago?"
Shadows in the Movie House
During the decades when the building ran as a movie theater, moviegoers reportedly saw shadowy figures in the auditorium. According to a 2015 report in The Dartmouth, the hall keeps a "ghost courtesy light" on during shows, a nod to the theater tradition that a light left burning keeps the spirits company.
Take Your Seat
The Music Hall is not a museum. It is a working theater, and the best way to experience it is to buy a ticket and take your seat for a show.
When the lights go down, look around the auditorium. The stories say that, every so often, someone in the crowd is dressed for an evening that ended a very long time ago.
