Things that go bump in the night...

Tonight I took MWH and some of her friends to the beautiful Coleman Theater for the Mystery Tour. The Tour is something that MWH has wanted to go on for years but you had to be 13 and since she will be in 2 weeks I decided now was a good time to go.

I know that the Coleman Theater is old and I knew it was a big thing here in NE Oklahoma, but I had no idea of the absolute grandeur that it truly is. We didn't even get to see half of it and it was truly amazing!

We started out in the concession area, which is not original and will be destroyed at some point to restore it to it's original glory. I hate to see the concession area go, but they do plan on opening a little diner type concession area south of the entrance, where the sewing machine shop used to be if you remember that. There, our first tour guide, Sally, told us about the history of the theater and to keep an eye on the web site for more Mystery Tour dates. It was then that she reminded us to spell theatre with an RE on the end rather than an ER because the ER one is a porn site. Lovely........ Is nothing sacred? LOL

We then moved into the main hall lobby. It was so beautiful, there are mirrors and velvet seats and new replicated carpet. The original mahogony woodwork still shines and is just amazing when you think how old the theater is. Some of the details work they have done recently is the gold gilding (is that spelled right?) on the woodwork. It's simply classic.

After Sally told us about the Coleman Brothers and their mining millions, she pointed out the pictures that are hung in the main lobby. These pictures are black and white and when you walk by the eyes follow you, the neck seems to turn, the face seems to shift...... Very creepy. There's more but I don't want to ruin it for you should you get to go.

Our next stop was through the auditorium and to the stage where our second tour guide was on the Mighty Wurlitzer organ. He had on a black and red cape and was playing like a mad man and I do mean that literally. LOL He had a mask on and definitely looked the part. He started his speil with a stereotypical vampirish accent and I really thought the whole thing was going to be corny, that I'd regret blowing my $10 there rather than at one of the local casinos. How wrong I was!!

We all sat center stage and heard his stories, he told us about Stuart and Abie and Mr. Roberts and Mr. Coleman and the dreaded Stage Phantom. He told us so many stories and I don't want to ruin it for you so you'll just have to go yourself. And, yes, we did hear and see some unexplainable things. Paper rustling in the balcony, keys jingling, balls bouncing, footsteps.... Then on stage we had a bit of a scare and one of the other tour-mates was lucky enough to catch a piece of the "disturbance".

From there we headed down into the green room and to the old orchestra warming up area. That was sooooooo cool! In the green room is a mirror that has a lot of history to it and the warm up room was so scarey! Larry turned off all the lights and we had some major activity going on, I swear the woman sitting next to me left a fingernail in my thigh!

After scaring everyone to the point where we all had to pee, we headed back to the lobby for a potty break. Next we went upstairs into the balcony where we had even MORE strange, unexplainable things happen! Stuart was sooooo active, or was it Abie?

In every different area we heard and smelled things and the temperature dropped like crazy and sometimes "it" was so close I didn't know whether or not to trust my gut instincts!

From the balcony we went down to the "sewer" area where the crematorium is and heard all the fantastic stories of bones and secret tunnels and saw something that was completely new to our tour guide. Very interesting!

Our last stop was back up in the lobby for a question and answer period and then we were done. It's nearly 1:00am and I'm so glad I got to go! So ready to do it again! If you are ever here in our neck of the woods, please, stop and do a Coleman Mystery Tour, they are definitely a lot of fun!!