HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
Bradenton theater on the site of the demolished 1953 Riverfront Theatre, long reported haunted by a child called Lily
502 Third Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ticket prices vary by production. See the Manatee Performing Arts Center website for the current season and box-office hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Modern multi-stage theater building with elevators and accessible seating
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1953 · Home of the Manatee Players (est. 1947) · Site of Bradenton's First Community Theater · Manatee River Cultural Landmark
The Manatee Players trace their beginnings to 1947, when several members of the Bradenton Women's Club who were also aspiring actors formed a community-theater group. For its first years the troupe performed without a permanent home.
That changed in 1953, when Dr. Sugg and Edward and Lillian Bishop provided start-up funding for a dedicated playhouse. The Riverfront Theatre, Bradenton's first community theater, was built on an undeveloped piece of land along the Manatee River and opened in December 1953 with a production of 'I Remember Mama.' For decades the Riverfront served as the Manatee Players' home and a center of community theater on Florida's southwest coast.
As the original building aged, the company replaced it with a modern, multi-stage facility — the Manatee Performing Arts Center — on the same downtown riverside ground. The old Riverfront Theatre was demolished to make way for it. The new center continues the Manatee Players' programming alongside touring and community events, and it carries forward the ghost stories that had attached to the building it replaced.
Sources
The hauntings tied to the Manatee Players' home began at the original Riverfront Theatre, the 1953 building that stood on this riverside site before the current center. According to a Bradenton Magazine account, the theater had a reputation as haunted essentially from opening night. People working and performing there described hearing a child crying in the women's costume room and seeing a couple dressed in colonial-era clothing dancing on the stage.
Before the old building was torn down, paranormal investigators recorded what they presented as contact with a small child. They said they communicated with a girl named Lily, around three years old, and captured a child's voice on a recorder; the same group reported seeing a cat dart in front of them — a 'ghost cat' that staff said had been spotted in the building's final years. Lily is a figure of theater lore, identified only through these recordings rather than through any documented death at the site.
Those stories carried over when the Riverfront was demolished and the Manatee Performing Arts Center rose in its place. Commercial Bradenton ghost tours still include the Manatee Players' theater on their routes, telling visitors about the young-girl spirit said to linger where the original playhouse stood.
Notable Entities
See a play or musical staged by the Manatee Players, the community-theater company that has performed in Bradenton since 1947. The modern center stands where the original Riverfront Theatre once did, and the troupe's long history on this riverside site is the backdrop for the building's persistent ghost stories.
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