Every year teenagers volunteer to be a part of the haunted theater at the Lyric Theatre, which is actually haunted.

The staff of the Lyric has given the ghost that haunts it a nickname, “Antoine.” He is a mostly benevolent entity who apparently entertains himself by moving things around and humming. Sometimes his footsteps can be heard throughout the theater. Some people believe that he is possibly the ghost of a victim who was brought to the theater when the lyric severed as a temporary hospital following a devastating tornado the tripped through town.

“The ghost makes me a little nervous, but Antoine is a friendly ghost,” Tupelo High School junior Meredith McLaurin said. “He just likes to do little jokes. He’s harmless. I mean, if I was a ghost I’d like to joke around. I mean, you are dead.”

This year at the haunted theatre, THS theater teacher Allana Austin has a section that some THS students helped her with.

“The haunted theatre is fun because you get to use your creativity and think, ‘How am I going to scare these people?” Austin said.

The theatre has 15 different scares like asylum, exorcism, haunted hospital and a mask room, but in some sections it is divided into smaller sections to get visitors even more scared.

“The haunted theatre was good and scary,” junior Mallie Hunt said. “They have a bunch of clowns that were very freaky.”

“I love seeing the reaction of people as I scare them and they come out of my room,” McLaurin said. “I also enjoy the makeup and the process of getting ready and seeing what the people are afraid of.”

If you go to the haunted theatre, which is open from  Oct. 30-Nov. 1, be prepared to be scared.