Klamath Basin's Oldest Community Theater, Still Hosting an Old Regular
201 Main St, Klamath Falls, OR 97601
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Performance ticket prices vary by production. Check linkvilleplayers.org for current schedule and pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Older theater building; stairs present. Contact venue for accessibility details.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1985 · Community Theater History · Southern Oregon Performing Arts
The Linkville Players are the oldest community theater group in the Klamath Basin, with a history extending through two predecessor organizations: the Pelican Players and the Klamath Civic Theatre. Together, the lineage spans more than 50 years of amateur theatrical production in southern Oregon.
The current Linkville Playhouse at 201 Main Street in downtown Klamath Falls became the organization's permanent home in the mid-1980s. The space, with its pew-style seating and costume attic, has the particular character of a community theater that has been continuously operated and continuously loved.
Klamath Falls, originally named Linkville after the Link River that connects Upper Klamath Lake to Lake Ewauna, was renamed in 1892. The town grew as a railroad hub and timber industry center in southern Oregon. The theater community predates the current playhouse by decades, reflecting a performance culture rooted in the relative geographic isolation of the Klamath Basin.
Ralph McCormick, whose name has attached to the reported haunting, was an actor deeply involved with the theater's productions through the late 1980s and early 1990s. He died in 1992 or 1994 depending on the source — the Shadowlands original reports 1994, while the aggregator at oregonhauntedhouses.com states 1992. The theater has not publicly resolved the discrepancy. What the accounts agree on is that he attended nearly every day, sat in the same seats, and smoked his pipe.
Sources
Ralph McCormick went to the Linkville Playhouse nearly every day. He sat in the same seats — rows 22 or 23, feet up, pipe in hand. After he died in the early 1990s, the routine apparently continued.
The first documented identification came when a newer actor, alone in the theater one evening, noticed a man sitting in the audience smoking a pipe. He later described the figure to a veteran company member, who retrieved a photograph of McCormick and asked if that was who he'd seen. It was.
A stage manager with the theater has described two personal experiences. In one, her service dog spotted an older gentleman standing in the balcony doorway upstairs and began pursuing him. Investigation found no one there.
The dress rehearsal account is perhaps the most structurally strange. The cast was on stage with no technical elements running — no sound, no lights, nothing from the booth. Then Greensleeves began to play. The cast ran to the soundbooth and found it empty. Before anyone could locate the controls, the track changed on its own.
The costume attic has its own atmosphere. A ghost light — the single bulb left burning in theaters after closing, by theatrical tradition kept on to appease stage spirits — was added after the first sightings and has remained lit every night since.
McCormick is not described as threatening or distressing. He is, by all accounts, exactly what he was in life: an audience member who will not miss a show.
Notable Entities
The Linkville Players present an annual season of productions in a building where a former actor named Ralph McCormick has reportedly been observed since his death — seated in rows 22-23, feet up, smoking a pipe, as he did in life. Performance attendance is the primary public access point. The costume attic and soundbooth have their own documented accounts.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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