Woodstock Opera House

Orson Welles learned much of his early craft on the Woodstock Opera House stage as a student at the nearby Todd School for Boys in the late 1920s and early '30s, returning in 1934 to direct and star in a summer season of plays. The theater's famous ghost story — a heartbroken actress named Elvira who leapt to her death from the belfry after being passed over for a role, and who now occupies seat DD113 during performances — has no basis in fact: actor Shelley Berman invented the legend himself while performing with the Woodstock Players in the late 1940s, starting with a claim that he'd seen the seat rise up on its own. No such suicide ever took place. The story has nonetheless become a beloved piece of local theater folklore, complete with the seat still left conspicuously empty.