Cowan Hall is haunted, or so some members of the Otterbein community believe.
As the story goes, a young actress named Twyla, who tried out for an Otterbein performance and became upset over not getting the part she wanted or any part at all, decided to end her life in the most theatrical of ways: She somehow climbed to the light fixtures above the stage in Fritsche Theatre and jumped more than 30 feet to her death.
While there are slight variations on the story, Otterbein archivist Stephen Grinch said that the story is false.
“There is no truth to this story in the historical record,” he said. There was no one named Twyla enrolled at Otterbein. There was never any death recorded at Cowan and the event supposedly took place 30 years before the building was even built.”
While the story may be false, unexplained events have still been reported by Otterbein students both past and present.
“Theater professors, students and even some people who have been in the building at opportune moments have felt a presence,” Grinch said. “A friend of mine from undergraduate days remarked that out of nowhere, a noose appeared hanging from the (lights above the stage), and no one had seen it before and it wasn’t set for the stage. It simply appeared. Lighting cues will be wiped from the board only to reappear under mysterious circumstances. Things will be moved and weird noises will happen. Not just building creaks either, but things that cannot be explained.”
Otterbein professor Ed Vaughan first heard about Twyla during his undergraduate days.
“Twyla’s presence was well-established when I arrived here for my freshman year in 1967,” Vaughn said. “Any odd noise or gust of wind in Cowan Hall — and there were many — or an odd occurrence in rehearsal or in performance was followed by a brief pause and then someone whispering, ‘Twyla’.”
While many people who have been on Otterbein’s campus for many years have had major experiences, current students haven’t had experiences of the same caliber.
“There are creepy sounds, but that’s generally as far as it goes,” said Katie Falter, a junior theater major.
Twyla is listed in “Haunted Ohio III,” a book written by Chris Woodyard about the various haunted places in Ohio.
The book mentions several of the things Grinch noted, but also states that people have slipped on the supposed spot where Twyla hit the stage, doors open and close without warning and supposedly, when the building is very quiet, you can hear Twyla crying.
Supporting Grinch’s statement about the missing lighting cues, “Haunted Ohio III” said that right before a theater performance of “Stepping Out,” all the lighting cues magically disappeared from the board. Lighting designer Rob Johnson had to frantically reprogram them. “Whenever anything goes wrong in Cowan Hall, we traditionally blame it on Twyla the Theatre Ghost,” Johnson said in “Haunted Ohio III.”
While a majority of students have heard about Twyla, there are a few that haven’t heard her story.
“I didn’t even know there was a ghost in Cowan,” said Lili Froehlich, a senior theater major. “I wish I would have known.”
