The legend:

“During play rehearsal at the Weiner Theater, one girl brought a Ouija board, and while they were on break, the characters went backstage and asked if there were any ghosts residing in the theater. The Ouija board replied with the name Annie, and we have learned that there is a ghost named Annie in the Weiner Theater, and we keep a chair set for her in the tech booth during every show…But Ms. Caskey and everyone else already knew there was a ghost named Annie in the Weiner theater. And then, and then, so the Ouija board moved to Annie, and they were like, ‘There’s a ghost named Annie here,’ and everyone was, everyone who wasn’t there for the Ouija board was like, ‘Yeah we know,’ and they were like, ‘What?!’ and so, it was completely, like…there’s an actual ghost in the theater. Like, actually a ghost. Like Virginia and the people who were moving the Ouija board had no idea that there was a girl named Annie in the theater…but Mrs. Davis told them that there was an Annie. It’s really creepy.”

The informant, my sister and a sophomore in high school, heard this from her friend Virginia who was in a play at the all-girls k-12 school she attends in TN (and from which I graduated). The Weiner Theater is the school’s huge main theater that seats approximately 600 people for school plays, recitals, and other events. Ms. Caskey is the school’s theater director, and Mrs. Davis manages the tech booth in the theater department; according to the informant, both of these faculty members previously knew about the ghost named Annie who haunts the Weiner Theater. Virginia and some other girls in the school musical in the fall of 2014 were unaware of this ghost. Since the girls had no previous knowledge of the ghost, and the older faculty members already knew of such ghost, this Ouija board experience therefore proved to them that the ghost Annie is actually real. Memphis has a lot of old places, especially in midtown and downtown—the Orpheum Theater downtown is also presumably haunted by a little girl ghost—so belief in ghosts isn’t that unusual. The school was founded in 1902; it was one building on a small plot of land with very few students. Its old campus was downtown, but it moved campus to its current location in 1964. This is the history they taught us throughout elementary and middle school, along with even more detailed descriptions of the founder and her students. A portrait of the founder even hangs up in the library. Being over 100 years old, there is great emphasis on the school’s history and traditions. I believe its status as such a historical institution makes it very easy for its students and faculty to believe that it is haunted by ghosts. Ms. Caskey and Mrs. Davis have obviously accepted the fact that Annie exists. Most people who know this accept the knowledge and carry on with their day. They have even given her a chair in the tech booth to watch every show the school produces. And although the informant thinks it’s creepy, she obviously believes wholeheartedly that there is a ghost in the Weiner Theater.