Melissa Larsen could hear the sound effects coming from upstairs. She was in charge of the sound board that night and ran upstairs frantically.

“I thought someone was messing with the sound board,” said Larsen, junior in performing arts. “When I got up there, the door was locked and all the lights were off, but sounds continued to come from the sound board. Doors slamming, rustling of wind … it was really creepy.”

Larsen is one of many theater participants who have seen or experienced the ghost of Fredrica Shattuck, who is rumored to haunt Fisher Theater.

“Fredrica has never appeared to me because I’m already convinced she’s here,” said Doris Nash, costume-shop supervisor. “But people have told stories for years about lights flickering and reflections seen in mirrors.”

Nash added the most famous story is about a wheelchair.

“A group of students and faculty were talking in the empty auditorium of the theater when a wheelchair on the side of the stage rolled out to center stage and stopped,” she said.

The wheelchair was donated to Fisher Theater by Shattuck herself, said Brian Swanson, technical director of ISU Theater. Fredrica played a large role in the creation of a theater program here at Iowa State, he added.

“She started the ISU Players, which eventually went on to become ISU Theater,” Swanson said.

Fredrica is thought to be a friendly ghost who occasionally will assist and take part in the theater company she helped to start, Swanson said.

“It’s said that a few years ago, the stage manager was having personal problems,” he said. “She was the only person in the theater and she was crying up in the booth. Then she went down to the bathroom, and when she came back there were a bunch of Kleenex left in the booth.”

Swanson said he’s not a big believer in ghosts, but he did admit to one strange incident several years ago. Swanson said he was installing door catchers on the set, and twice he left the room and returned to find the doors he had just shut were open again.

“I think someone was playing a joke on me, but you never know. That’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me here,” he said.

Larsen claims to have been a witness to various unexplained phenomena, such as seeing Fredrica’s reflection in a mirror.

Fredrica’s presence, however, is thought by most to be a positive addition to Fisher Theater, Swanson said.

“Many people claim to have seen her in the back row of the theater, where she will occasionally watch a show,” he said.