As I've been exploring theaters, I've discovered a wide variety of ghost lights—typically a single light left to illuminate the stage when the theater is not in use. Seeing all the different ghost lights is becoming nearly as much fun as learning new ghost stories. The one at Venice Theatre is pretty basic—sort of an old floor lamp minus a shade. The one at Sarasota Opera House possibly began life the same way but now it has a Sesame Street creature hugging it and, fastened to the stage manager's outpost backstage I found something that looks a lot like dear old St. Christopher, the now-retired traveler's saint.

As I continue to check out theaters, I am going to start asking to see the ghost lights. When there is a show going on, or even a rehearsal, the ghost lights are usually backstage taking a break from their late night duties as protectors of their various stages. Supposedly the first ghost lights were used to deter the ghosts of past plays from reappearing although the most important reason for a ghost light is really safety. Even when the sun is shining, theaters can be dark places and finding the light switch can be a challenge. A ghost light can be very helpful—sort of like an electrical Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Should anyone out there in the blogosphere have a photo of a ghost light in a SW Florida theater, I would love to see it and could possibly work it into the book. Feel free to tell us about your theater's ghost light in the comments below.

Back when I was writing Ghost Stories of Sarasota, I had been told a ghost story about the building. Later, after the book was released, I learned more, but it was up to Rosemary to add to the building’s history.

While the ground floor has always been some sort of theater, the upper floors have been used in many ways—some more interesting than others.

The building began life as the Edwards Theatre, which functioned initially as a vaudeville house and movie theater. Over the years it received it's share of fame. Elvis Presley played there while on his way to the top and The Cecil B. DeMille film, "The Greatest Show on Earth," which had been filmed in Sarasota, had its world premier at the theater.

When the Sarasota Opera was looking for a home, the theater seemed to be a match made in heaven. After a recent $20 million renovation and restoration project, the old theater is better than ever. It has a new glass skylight above its grand lobby, a larger orchestra pit, state of the art technical systems and, it seems, some additional residents of the ethereal variety.

When I began researching the theater book, I envisioned writing something shorter than my other books. I didn't expect to find as many ghost stories for theaters as I had for cities and towns, but apparently my expectations were wrong. Southwest Florida is rife with theaters, and not just along the Cultural Coast.

Not only are there more spirits in many of the theaters than are typical in other buildings, it seems there are simply far more theaters than I'd realized. My goal has now expanded. I want to find every one of them and hope people out there in the blogosphere will help. The goal is to find every professional and community theater on the Southwest coast of Florida, from the Greater Tampa, St. Pete area south to Marco Island. I have all the theaters listed with the American Association of Community Theatres and all the Equity houses. What I do not have are the smaller drama troops that may perform in a church or community center. The murder-mystery troops that may perform in a restaurant are also fair game. Ghost do not necessarily remain in one place.

If you have contact information for such a theater or drama group or know a ghost story pertaining to such a theater and would care to share it, please submit it below. I look forward to hearing from you.

Before my friend Rosemary Altea, the world famous spiritual medium, headed back north for the summer, she came ghost hunting with me to Fort Myers, which seems to be quite spirited.

At the Edison-Ford Winter Estates, it was not surprising that she spotted Mina Edison. In the inventor's former lab, something drew her attention to one of the work areas at the far end of the room and then, on the second floor of the Ford house, she discovered the mistress of that manor, a vivacious woman who had such an extraordinary life in that house that she seems to have decided to stay.

This brought back shades of Ca d'Zan, the former winter home of John and Mable Ringling in Sarasota. I have lost count of the number of times I have been there with various mediums. Each time they tune in to John and Mable and often, they also meet up with Emily, John’s second wife. On other occasions, I have had the opportunity to be in the house with members of one or another paranormal society. One of them returned with a recording made on one of those evenings. The investigator played it several times for us, offering it as proof of the presence of one of the ladies who once lived in the house.

Similar paranormal groups have been contacting other sites, requesting permission to visit late at night with their equipment to see if they can come up with electronic proof that ghosts exist.

Somehow I think the increasing numbers of these societies may be more interesting than their actual findings.

Turns out, there were several and, one by one they began to drop in on me. Within five months, there were enough stories for a slim volume of stories, I had met several mediums and the hunt continued for more stories, moving next to Sarasota and then, this past year to the Clearwater& St. Petersburg area. Through it all I had ongoing help from the person who started me down this interesting path and for that I shall be eternally grateful.

Not only were ghost stories dropping in my lap, a circus history book also begged to be written and was published in April 2004. Although there is nary a ghost story in that book, that book came about because of the Venice ghost book. Because of the importance of the circus to Venice,which was the winter home of The Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus from 1960-1992 and of its circus college for an additional four years, I felt strongly that I needed to have a circus-related ghost story in my Venice book. Perhaps the circus ghosts were playing tricks on me or, perhaps they really wanted that circus book to be written for, I had to interview more than 70 circus performers, fans and show personnel before I finally found my circus ghost story.

In two years I had gone from someone who was open to the idea of ghosts and their stories to someone who seemed to be guided by those spirited characters. Never one to look a gift horse (especially a whole circus act of Liberty horses) I penned the circus book before getting back to my ghost hunting.

The spirits must have been happy because the Clearwater & St. Petersburg book fell quickly into place and Ghost Stories of Tampa Bay began to arrive in all manner of ways—some by e-mail,some from my new Clearwater friends and others from casual acquaintances who appeared in my life.

About the same time, I also decided to write a book of day trip ideas for residents and visitors in SW Florida. Working on both books are once, I was making great progress. That changed when Began to concentrate totally on the day trip book. It seems the spirits had no problem with my working on two books but they did not like being put on the shelf.

All of a sudden, road blocks appeared to disrupt my day trip book’s progress. The spirits seemed to be speaking.

And,to make sure that I was listening, they even sent me a new medium, a lady named Rosemary Altea, who is internationally known for her work and her gifts. She has been on the Larry King, Diane Sawyer and Oprah shows, has had several New York Times best selling books and has healing centers in Great Britain and in Vermont. My first knowledge of her appearance on the scene came from Susan Lockwood, a Clearwater medium who had helped me find stories for the Clearwater book. Out of the blue, Susan emailed me about Rosemary's coming appearance in Tampa. A few days later, Rosemary's secretary contacted meat the newspaper where I work, to tell me that Rosemary would be conducting a program in Sarasota and, she had recently moved to Venice and, would I like to interview her.

Does Hershey make chocolate?

The interview was arranged for the following Wednesday afternoon, and, accompanied by several family members who are in spirit, I headed over to her Venice home. Actually,at the time, I did not know I was accompanied by anyone at all but, an hour into the interview, Rosemary began carrying on a conversation with my late husband. She had described him and his arrival in detail and also had described my father, mother and my mother's twin sister. It seemed that all of them were with me on that day.

As the interview ended, Rosemary asked me about the possibility of going ghost hunting in the area. Since Susan Lockwood and her husband had already contacted me about heading up to Tampa on the following Saturday, it seemed I was getting another message about the Tampa book.

The following Saturday, Rosemary accompanied me to Tampa where we toured the American Victory, a U.S. Merchant Marine cargo ship that served at the end of World War II, in Korea and Vietnam. While our guide stressed the use of the ship for cargo, Rosemary sensed that troops had been aboard too and when she asked about that, learned she was right.

Still not sure if there is a true ghost story there but it is a start.

Rosemary and I are going back again in a couple of days—this time to the Falk Theatre and some other places recommended by Chris Lockwood.

And with some more help from my spirited helpers, you BLOG readers may be moved to add some stories to this site.

May the spirits be with you