I talk with Robert Viagas about his book Good Morning, Olive: Haunted Theatres of Broadway and Beyond. The work is about the ghosts that haunt theatres in New York and around the world. A perfect Halloween read.
Robert Viagas was the editor-in-chief of Encore Monthly, the national theatre magazine. He has more than thirty-five years’ experience as an author, journalist, lecturer, podcaster, and professor. He has spent much of his career working on Broadway with Playbill Inc., including as the founding editor of Playbill.com. Mr. Viagas has also written 22 books on the performing arts.
ABOUT THE BOOK (from Amazon.com)
Hamlet calls death “that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.”
But he’s wrong. Some do return.
Each night after the applause dies, the curtain falls, the audience vanishes, the cleaners dust, and the lights are killed, great theatres become dark and silent places. But not always quite empty.
That’s when the theatre ghosts make their entrance and strut and fret their hour upon the shadowed boards, illuminated only by the ghost light, the solitary lamp that is required to burn through the night on every Broadway stage.
Many of Broadway’s busiest theatres continue to be just as busily haunted by spirits, some with well-known names and histories.
Good Morning, Olive (named for one of the most beautiful and temperamental of Broadway’s ghosts) is about the ghosts that haunt theatres in New York and around the world.
Broadway is the playground of stars, so it’s probably not surprising to learn that even its ghosts are stars. Meet some of Broadway’s best known—and most active—celebrity ghosts. Don’t worry: like Casper, they tend to be friendly. For the most part.
There’s something special about theatres, something especially conducive and welcoming to ghosts. Charles J. Adams III wrote, “By its very nature, a theatre is a vault within which every human emotion is at once imprisoned, impersonated, imitated, and elicited. Tangles of cords and ropes…tall curtains and backdrops which fade into high darkness…cubicles and trap doors and passageways.”
Good Morning, Olive takes readers on a tour of that world.
Podcast Posts footer
Donations Accepted
DONATIONS ACCEPTED! We need your support to help us grow. Consider a small monetary donation or purchase a one-of-a-kind gift for friends, family, loved ones or even yourself.
Full information for each episode including playlists is available on our main PODCASTS page or view a list of ALL episodes.
