SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- Halloween is that special time of year when ghouls and ghosts make its way back to the forefront of our minds. In theaters all over the world, superstition of the paranormal comes with the trade.

“The ghost light is universal,” said June Grinter, Proctors Theatre Historian. “The ghost light is on every stage. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in Proctors or in London.”

And that ghost light is always on when a production is not.

“The ghost light protects the stage and it protects the production from anything that is going to interfere.”

While the ghost light may be on every stage, there are some ghostly stories that are unique to Proctors. Not all specters haunt houses or rattle chains, some enjoy a night at the theater. Since it first opened its doors in 1926, a “lady in white” occasionally pays a visit here.

“The Lady in White in Schenectady has been seen in Vale Cemetery. She’s been seen in Jackson Gardens at Union College. She’s been seen down at the Stockade and she appears here. Whether this is all the same ‘lady in white,’ who knows, but she sits in the box seat right over there. And she’s seen when the theater is quiet; she sits over in the box seats waiting for a play, I guess. If you’re going to see a play in Schenectady you might as well come to Proctors.”

The “lady in white” isn’t the only woman to linger there. They say another one likes to hang around a flight of stairs.

“The other lady has been seen by a couple of staff members,” said Grinter. “The first one to tell me about the story was that he was working early in the morning after a show the night before, cleaning up. He looked up and there was a woman standing there. He said her clothing was not of the era. He just knew she didn’t want him where he was so he left.”

No one really knows who she is or why she’s there, but stairs seem to be her thing. Some speculate it could be the first wife of the theatre’s first owner, F.F. Proctor. But Proctors' ghosts don’t only come in human form.

“We have a few animals who show up. One of them happens to be a lion,” said Grinter. “There was a show fronted by a magician and the magician had a lion who disappeared during the act. The lion did not like to be caged and he was here overnight and so they just finally decided to let him have the run of the theatre.”

Some years later that lion would leave this Mortal Coil and it was Proctors he returned to.

“He loved the theatre so much he had such a good time here.”

Are there truths to any of these stories? Maybe. But we’ll probably never know. They’re fun and it brings another welcome layer of history to Proctors Theater.