Former National Guard Armory inside Pullen Park, now a community theatre — artistic director Ira David Wood III publicly reports seeing the apparition of a young boy, with a 2017 Ghost Guild investigation capturing 20+ minutes of phantom stair-climbing audio.
107 Pullen Road, Raleigh, NC 27607
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ticket prices vary by production. Check theatreinthepark.com for the current season schedule and pricing, including the long-running annual A Christmas Carol production.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved walkways from the Pullen Park parking area; the building has accessible seating sections
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1916 · Operates inside a former National Guard Armory in Pullen Park · Originally chartered 1947 as the Children's Theatre of Raleigh · Annual musical A Christmas Carol production since 1974 · Exclusive working relationship with the Ghost Guild since 2016 · Home of Ira David Wood III, well-known Raleigh theatre figure
Theatre in the Park (formally the Ira David Wood III Pullen Park Theatre) is a Raleigh community theatre headquartered in a former National Guard Armory building inside Pullen Park, one of the country's oldest public parks. The organization was originally chartered in 1947 as the Children's Theatre of Raleigh, Inc., and renamed in the early 1970s to reflect its broader programming and its new home in the armory.
The armory building stood vacant for a period prior to Theatre in the Park's tenancy, and that gap in occupancy is repeatedly referenced in the building's paranormal literature. The theatre's interior accommodates productions ranging from intimate dramas to large-cast musical adaptations.
The theatre's most visible figure is Executive Director Ira David Wood III, who has played Ebenezer Scrooge in his own musical adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol almost every year since 1974. Wood is the father of actress Evan Rachel Wood. The annual Christmas Carol production has become a Raleigh institution.
In 2016 the theatre formally engaged the local nonprofit Ghost Guild as its exclusive paranormal research team — an unusual public partnership between a working performing-arts venue and a registered research organization.
Sources
Theatre in the Park's paranormal reports are unusually well-grounded for a community theatre. According to ABC11's on-camera interview with Ira David Wood III, the artistic director has publicly described seeing the figure of a young boy near the front of the building and at the stairwells. Wood's own framing — 'We have a young boy that inhabits this space. We've seen him.' — is repeated verbatim in the regional coverage.
Cast and crew have also reported strange unexplained noises and the sensation of wind moving through the building when it is sealed for the night. The reports prompted Theatre in the Park to formally engage the local Ghost Guild as its exclusive paranormal research team in 2016.
A March 2017 Ghost Guild investigation produced the building's most-cited piece of evidence: investigators left a camera running in the lobby while they worked elsewhere in the building. Per ABC11's published account, the camera captured approximately 20 minutes of loud, repeated stair-climbing sounds in the lobby — a striking finding because the staircase ordinarily used at that location had been physically moved out of the lobby earlier that same evening. The Ghost Guild's own investigation page corroborates the recording.
Theatre in the Park follows the traditional theatre custom of leaving a 'ghost light' burning at center stage; per Wood, the gesture is also an acknowledgement of the presence the company has come to associate with the space.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Attend a Theatre in the Park production inside the former National Guard Armory at Pullen Park. The space is one of Raleigh's most distinctive small-theatre venues, home to Ira David Wood III's annual musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol since 1974.
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