In 1913, Saint John’s Imperial Theatre was built and Walter Goldberg was its first manager. Goldberg lived right above the theatre with his wife, two sons, and two daughters until his death 32 years later in 1945.  

Since his death, there have been many reports of inexplainable and eerie incidents that have happened throughout the theatre. A few of the current staff have kindly shared their ghostly experiences with us. These include mysterious closing doors, falling knives, paranormal elevator rides, and disastrous flying office supplies.  

Discover Saint John/Website

Emma McEvoy, the Imperial Theatre’s Outreach Coordinator, recounts that “One Saturday afternoon, the day of our first Christmas/holiday show, I was locking up the building after a photography tour. Our Technical Director had just come in and we ran into each other backstage. He was going to be on stage with a piano tuner getting ready for a show that evening. Our Hospitality Manager had also mentioned he’d be in shortly, so there would be no more than four of us in the building at that time. I start heading back to the Main Lobby and clearly hear a door close ahead of me. I assumed it must be the Technical Director and he somehow got ahead of me. When I made it to the Main Lobby, I looked inside the theatre and saw the Technical Director on stage with the piano tuner, so it clearly wasn’t him closing doors ahead of me. I think nothing of it and start walking upstairs to the office. There’s a blind corner at the top of the stairs, so you can’t see who’s coming and going from the office. As I get closer, I hear someone walking up the final stairs to the office and whistling. I figure it must be the Hospitality Manager, so I decided to go back downstairs to avoid spooking him. When I make it back to the Main Lobby, I look out the front doors and see the Hospitality Manager making his way across King’s Square. I freeze, realising that no one else was in that part of the building, and ran out the front doors to tell him. I’ve heard many sounds in the building and have never thought ‘Oh, that must be so-and-so’, so this was a first for me.”  

Another staff member of the Imperial Theatre, Mason James, had come close to getting stabbed due to one of Walter’s supernatural antics. He said: “Over the summer I went upstairs to the offices to grab a snack. There’s a little kitchen area there and there’s some like, shelves/cupboards with no doors on them with some plates lined up on their sides rather than laying flat. So I grabbed a small plate with one hand and put my other hand up to steady the other plates so they wouldn’t fall. I made sure the plates were steady and kind of hovered my hand over the plates for a couple seconds to make absolutely sure they wouldn’t fall. Well I start putting some crackers on my plate when all of a sudden, the previously still and stable plates fall right on top of me. None of them broke, thankfully. But one of them landed just perfectly on a knife that had been on the counter, sending it flying up towards me before falling to the floor. Maybe Walter wanted my crackers and was pissed I finished off a sleeve, I’m not sure. I still don’t know how to fully comprehend how everything happened because, again, I made absolutely certain that the plates in the cupboard were stable, and the knife shouldn’t have been in a position where it could behave in such a manner.”  

The current Assistant Box Office Manager, Caroline Bell, has been working for the Imperial Theatre since she was young. She had been told many times that there were ghosts wandering among the theatre but originally brushed it off as local legend. Not long after she had her first experience with the ghost of Walter Goldberg. “Late one night, I entered this elevator by myself, pushed the button for the second floor, nothing out of the ordinary. As I stood inside, waiting for that gaping maw of the elevator to close… it did not. And the elevator began to rise nonetheless. The doors shuttered and clattered as though something was holding them open. Someone. Despite my panic, I had a thought: “Walter?” Immediately upon uttering this name, the doors stuttered closed and the elevator sunk back down to ground level.” Along with this spooky elevator ride, Caroline also said that she felt “The creeping feeling of something being right behind you, the goosebumps when you know you need to pull your toes in under the covers” while walking through the halls of the theatre alone. 

Lindsay Jacquard, Box Office Manager and Sponsorship Coordinator, shared not her own experience but Executive Director Angela Campbells’s personal experience with Walter. Lindsay recounted that one morning “Angela arrives at work early, steps into her office, and finds the room in shambles. Her files have been scattered, the drawers thrown open, and her phone is off the hook, dangling in the middle of the floor. She is frustrated, concerned, but not scared until she confronts the office manager. He swears that the room was in perfect condition not five minutes earlier, and no one has entered since.”  

Imperial Theatre/Website

Have you ever felt as though someone, or something, was following you while walking through the Imperial Theatre to see a show? Perhaps the next time you visit the Imperial Theatre you will feel an otherworldly presence lingering in the halls, right behind you, or maybe you will even have a paranormal encounter during your visit, who knows? Just make sure the next time you go to the Imperial Theatre you are on the lookout for something spooky… and flying knives.