Ghost Light Tonight

When we walk in, I notice a single light on the stage, but don’t say anything. The bare bulb sits on the top of a pole which has an on-off switch about half the way down. The base has wheels. It’s a strange contraption, but then this is a theatre.

We’re here because I want to stand on the stage to get a sense of what it’s going to be like tonight when they call my name. This the first Moth story telling event where I know I’ll be called up, all of the others more of a game of chance, where you put your name in a hat and the host may or may not call you. Tonight is a GrandSLAM, and I’m one of ten who have qualified to tell our five minute stories in front of seven hundred and fifty people.

For this visit, we don’t stay long on the stage itself, but I do get a chance to take it all in. Standing at the front looking out, I can imagine a full house and take a few deep breaths to help imprint the memory. I don’t actually rehearse my story out loud, because that would be weird, so I kind of just stand there, looking left to right and up and down, and relax into being present.

“It feels small and intimate,” I say.

“Wait until the audience is in their seats,” the theatre manager says. “Then it’s going to feel enormous.”

“Great,” I don’t say but think to myself.

“With nobody in the hall, the scene is flat, but when all those faces are staring at you, that’s when it feels big.”

The Moth comes to The Huntington Theatre once a year, and I’m excited to have been tapped for this event. While I’ve told a half dozen stories over the last year and a half, those were all at smaller venues with less then half the capacity of this theatre. The Moth hosts what they call StorySLAMS in Brookline and Somerville, and I’ve been entering them since I retired in April of 2023. Each time you put your name in the hat, you have to be prepared for your name to be called, and about half the time, mine was. Every event has a different theme, and all of our stories have to be new, never been told.

Tonight’s theme is Making Waves. They define the theme this way: ‘Tell us stories about consequence. Ripples of tsunamis. Accidental or instigated. Rocking the boat or just keeping your head above water.’

My story is about being a middle child — born to stir the pot. I’m both excited and anxious at the same time, but grateful for this little peek into the inner workings of theatre.

“What’s that light for?” I ask pointing a the strange contraption in the middle of the stage we’re now leaving.

“Oh, that’s a ghost light?”

“A what?” I ask.

“Every theatre has one, so people don’t walk off the stage and get hurt when the theatre is dark. But also, because every theatre has ghosts, so it’s for them,” our host explains.

So great! Let’s hope those ghosts don’t make too much of a fuss tonight.