City Theater

Biddeford's City Theater is the opera house in the 1895 City Hall complex designed by John Calvin Stevens, which opened on January 20, 1896, after fire destroyed the town's earlier opera house in 1894. Its resident ghost is said to be Eva Gray, a singer who collapsed backstage and died of heart failure on Halloween Eve in 1904 after a third encore, with her young daughter beside her. Maine ghost-hunting groups and staff describe unseen presences, cold spots, whispering, a woman singing and phantom applause after shows. During the theater's children's summer camp, stage lights are said to sway as if for the children, which some take as Eva's approval. The theater is a working performance venue, and these accounts are local lore rather than documented events.