Ever walked into a building, an empty building and just felt like something was watching you? About to creep up, or blow a breeze by your ear? Is there a specific place that makes you feel that way, a basement, a church at night, a dusty attic, or perhaps a theater. The Grand Opera House, commonly referred to as “The Grand,” opened its doors in 1884, and now is the performing arts center for Mercer University. But well before the 21st century, The Grand had a haunted past. 

In 1971, the executive director of The Grand was a man named Randall Widner. A lover of the theater and his job, Widner put all his heart and soul into the major restoration of The Grand. So when Widner missed a few days of work, the staff was shocked to discover him dead in the “Thunder room” of The Grand. According to a multitude of sources such as The Georgia Sun, he climbed up to the room and died with sleeping pills, a bottle of whiskey and a pistol by his side.

However, there is more to that story, and it is not the only ghost that supposedly haunts The Grand’s halls.

Bob Mavity, the theater’s senior technical director and employee for the past 28 years, has gathered information on the hauntings over the course of his career. Starting in the 1950s, there were stories about a deceased performer at the opera haunted its walls, Mavity explained.

“Notated stories about security guards and Fire Marshal’s in the sort, of spotting or hearing an entity here, mostly at that time was one known as the ‘Lady in White,’” he said. The ghost of a deceased performer, the Lady in White’s paranormal claim to fame was being spotted in the theater’s balcony, her singing being throughout The Grand.

“She was often seen either in the boxes or in one of the landings in the back,” he said. 

 Yet, the most notable Phantom of the Macon Opera House is the one previously mentioned, Mr. Randall Widner.

The somber tale, which Mavity has gained more knowledge on since speaking to a close friend of the late technical director, goes as such, “he was the executive director/technical director of the theater at the time when they were doing restorations of the theater in the late 1960s.”

Mavity explained the restorations were taking place after they had saved the building from becoming a parking lot next door and he [Widner] was hired to oversee the renovation of the theater, to bring it back to its former glory.

”(Widner) was here, he put a lot of time and effort into working on the theater, during said time he became estranged from his wife,” Mavity said.

A woman who was a close friend of Widner’s reached out to Mavity to give more details on the personal life of “Randy.” According to Mavity, “because he was spending so much time here she started to step out on him, and he got very distraught about that and it took its toll on him, because he was spending so much time here, but he was losing his wife in the process. And so one day he had decided it was just too much; he had a pistol some sleeping pills in a bottle of whiskey and after a meeting here during the day that day, everybody else left and he climbed the spiral staircase and went to the thunder room.” Mavity explains that it was the warm August day that got to Widner, “he had taken a couple of sleeping pills already, and by the time he got to the top he was overwhelmed by the heat, sat down and never recovered. He took the pistol with the intention of taking his life.” 

Since Widner’s death The Grand has been a subtle hub of paranormal activity with employees of the theater hearing phantom noises and feeling phantom hands tapping on their shoulders, or even a spectral figure sitting in a chair on the far left of the theater. Most of the poltergeist activity from Randall is friendly annoyances within the tech crew. Mavity, himself is a big believer of the paranormal, having experienced ghostly encounters throughout his life. So whether you believe in ghosts or not, don’t provoke any spirits when you go to the opera.

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