The Wraith of Rivoli – Part 1
Words by Orlando Callegari Jr.
The places of old hold secrets to which only a select few are privy. If you believe the stories of the employees of the Williams Center, the Rivoli theater could be one of those hollows. Several staff members have strange tales of what goes on during the twilight hours at the hundred-year-old hall.
Jordan Fried, the Operations Manager, explains that in the year since he began working, there’s often ‘activity’ at the Williams Center. The sights and sounds of spirits are a staple of the auditorium.
“The footsteps in the Rivoli theater are always present when you’re in the building alone… They don’t sound like they’re a small mammal. They sound like a human walking around, in the rafters.”
Fried says besides movement, voices can be heard frequently, late at night, when no other people are in the building. He heard the sounds most often last Spring when closing up or opening the building. “Just talking that I thought a human was in the building,” he explains. “It’s very innocent stuff like saying my name. Late at night.”
One evening, in late Fall, Fried was working alongside Joe Kelley, the Music Director, in the room in front of the studio. The two had been alone in the building for some time when Fried heard a kind of rattling, vibrating sound.
Kelley turned to Fried.
“He asked me, ‘Did you just see that? Those wires just started shaking for like ten seconds’…And then it happens immediately again after that.” The two saw wires that run along the top of the room violently shake with no explanation.
Both examined the area afterwards and were unable to find an explanation for the phenomenon nor did they ever witness it again.
Eddy Rolon, the creator/producer of the Williams Center’s “Dungeons Yes, & Dragons” events, was also working alone at night late in the Winter of 2023 when he saw something peculiar in the Rivoli. As he shut down the facility for the evening he caught sight of a shape upstairs. Out of the corner of his eye, in the control room above the Black Box theater he saw what looked like a figure dressed in all white. Unsure of who might be around at this time, Rolon called out, “Hey!”
No response.
Rolon called “hello?” again and moved forward to try to get a better look. The figure moved to the left.
Determined to figure out who or what was there, Rolon called a third time asking “Who’s up there?” and moved toward the control room when the entity disappeared completely from view.
Rolon ran out of the theater and up the stairs. He arrived at the second floor and checked the area now occupied by Soldato Books & Records but found no trace of the figure.
“It seemed like a normal person who was just messing with me,” Rolon says. But with the building otherwise unoccupied and little chance that a trespasser could get out without being seen or heard, Rolon has little in the way of an explanation.
“I’m a skeptic so I’m not sure what I saw. I don’t like not knowing what I saw.” When asked if he was positive there was a person there he answers, “At the time I was 100% sure.”
Although Fried would not go so far as to posit a theory on the afterlife or what exactly has been causing the activity at the Williams Center he is open to the idea that there is more than what is visible in our everyday world.
“I believe that there are spectrums that we cannot see and there are audio spectrums that we cannot hear and we have no explanation for what goes on outside of those,” he says.
Join us for Nine Lives Paranormal Event
Thursday, August 22, 2024
7:05 PM - 10:00 PM
