page_title: Fortune Theatre, Dunedin
section_title: Ghost Hunt
hierarchical_section_title: Fortune Theatre, Dunedin / Legacy and significant moments / Ghost Hunt
caption_attribution_description: Fortune Theatre Window
context_page_description: New Zealand's Fortune Theatre laid claim to being the world's southernmost professional theatre company and sole professional theatre group in Dunedin, until its closure on 1 May 2018, citing financial difficulties. The company ran for 44 years. The theatre regularly produced local shows and hosted touring performances.
  The former Fortune Theatre building is registered as a category I historic place by Heritage New Zealand, which recognises its historic and architectural significance. Originally a Methodist church, it is located on the corner of Moray Place and Upper Stuart Street, in the heart of the southern city of Dunedin. As of 11 December 2019, the building is empty with no current plans for the building.
  Financial difficulties in 2000 threatened the theatre with closure, and forced the sale of the building to the Dunedin City Council, who leased the building back to the Fortune Theatre Trust.
context_section_description: In 2005, the theatre was featured on Ghost Hunt, a New Zealand television show, as it is claimed that the theatre is haunted. The Ghost Hunt investigation team were shown a photo which reportedly shows the ghost of a young woman gliding through a wall of the foyer, below a Gothic window Not long after the Fortune Theatre moved into the old church, tales spread of "sinister voices" being heard offstage and well-secured lights falling from the lighting grid. A phantom audience member has also been reported by theatregoers on numerous occasions. Reports continued to come from a variety of reliable sources until the claimed hauntings of the Fortune Theatre became a part of Dunedin folklore.
  The Ghost Hunt investigation team visited the theatre and were shown a picture that is claimed to show the ghost of a young woman gliding through a wall of the foyer, below a Gothic window. During the investigation team's visit, they were also able to talk to people who had worked at the theatre and claim to have had paranormal experiences in the building:
  A lighting technician claimed that he was all alone setting up on stage one day when he "glimpsed a person" over his shoulder on the edge of the stage and thought that "they were reading through some lines, as an actor would" but knew no cast members were around at the time. He turned the stage lights on and "suddenly they were gone".
  A man who ran the box office claimed to have had two "disconcerting" experiences. The first experience involved a "young boy sitting in the corner". He initially "thought nothing of it" but the "realisation struck" him that the theatre was closed. He "turned back around, but he'd disappeared." The second experience involved a girl he claims he noticed when he "looked up to the back corner of the audience seating, near where the soundman usually sits" after he heard "a strange noise in the theatre" on one occasion.
caption: Fortune Theatre Window (31345358522)
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