Now in its 150th anniversary year, Cohoes Music Hall reserves an opera box for the spirit of risqué vaudeville star Eva Tanguay.
Every performer is moved by the Muses—the eternal spirits of inspiration. However, at the Cohoes Music Hall, it’s not just the spirit of creativity that charges the energy inside the historic venue’s storied walls. The spirit of Eva Tanguay, who first graced the Hall’s stage in 1890, is alive and well.
Known as the girl who made vaudeville famous, Tanguay was a renegade who was unafraid to use the stage as a platform to shock the status quo. “There are a couple of documentaries about her shows getting canceled when she was on tour for fear of moral issue,” says Cohoes Music Hall Production Manager Dennis Strainge. The issue? “She would wear pants on stage. Her act was very much like a feminist mark.” In other words, the 1800s equivalent of Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress.
Today, Tanguay’s spirit presides over the stage where she first made her mark.
“She’s not a mean ghost,” assures Strainge, “but she wants you to know that you’re working in her house.”
Playful in spirit and still yearning for a piece of the spotlight, legend has it that the ghost of Tanguay likes to get into mischief, playing tricks on artists if they forget to bid her hello. It’s become a tradition for performers to leave her a tribute—some sort of small trinket—in her dedicated opera box before stepping on stage. The practice has become just as crucial a step as any sound check.
“Not for nothing, but we tend to run into odd issues,” explains Strainge. “We’ll sound check and everything will be fine. But if we forget to grab something for Eva, then there’ll be a weird radio signal coming through an amp that wasn’t there that we can’t get to go away.”
Naturally, there are quirks that come with operating in a 150-year-old theater, and Strainge acknowledges this with good humor. “Things are just bound to be weird at some point,” he says. “It’s nice to be able to put a name to it.”
This fall, Cohoes Music Hall is celebrating its 150th anniversary. “For 150 years, it’s been a place that families throughout the Capital Region can enjoy, and we’re really proud that we get to be its champion,” says Strainge of his team. “Eva is definitely one of our touchstones back through the years that keeps us thinking about that history.”
