THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 20, 1995 TAG: 9510190144
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY REBECCA A. MYERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 157 lines
THERE WERE NO LINES to rehearse because no words were spoken.
Just a bloodied, lifeless face appearing in the current Spike Lee movie, ``Clockers.''
It was a cameo appearance by local actor Michael LeMelle, who is shown in a crime-scene photo as a corpse with a gunshot wound to the head.
Next Friday, LeMelle will once again portray the role of a dead man, but this time he gets to talk. LeMelle will play the ghost of Isaiah in the Olde Towne Ghost Walk.
``I like acting on the street. It's a lot more personal. It's the most personal form of interacting,'' said LeMelle, a Norfolk native whose bellowing voice sounds hauntingly familiar - like James Earl Jones.
With an expected sell-out crowd of 2,400 shepherded on the walk in small groups at five-minute intervals, LeMelle will recite his ghost story an average of 48 times during the four-hour period.
``With street performing, you're doing it over and over so a lot of things can be added or taken away without hindrance to your performance,'' he said.
LeMelle will tell the story of Isaiah, a former groundskeeper at the Grice-Neely house on North Street.
According to legend, Isaiah drowned in the Elizabeth River while fishing late one night with his son. For hundreds of years, whenever the tide is high and the moon is full, his spirit is said to return to the house in search of someone or something.
The stop at North and Crawford streets will be one of 12 on the route from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. Oct. 27, when the Olde Towne Civic League puts on its biggest annual fund-raiser for the 15th consecutive year. Tickets are $5 each. Children not yet old enough to walk are free.
LeMelle, who just completed a lead role in a Founders Inn production of ``Big River,'' finds the Ghost Walk intriguing because it is ``live theater, of sorts,'' but with a twist.
``With movies and television, you can do it over and over until you get it right,'' he said. ``On the stage, you have one time to do it right. One shot .
But with street performing, he said, ``you have a rotating audience, so you're able to do a number of different things. You can recite your whole monologue, then you can recite it a totally different way the next time.''
Thousands have converged on Downtown Portsmouth every October since 1981 to hear the eerie tales of the city's haunted gardens, angry spirits and troubled Civil War souls.
And over the years, Ghost Walk organizers and volunteers have gotten the planning down to a science.
But as the event has surged in popularity - from 700 walkers in 1981 to 2,400 last year - coordinators do face a growing challenge: keeping happy those in line at the start of the walk.
``Keeping people in line and keeping the lines moving in an orderly fashion is usually the biggest bear,'' said Alan E. Gollihue, chairman of this year's walk.
One solution has been to sell advance tickets in one-hour intervals. A limited number of tickets, 800 per one-hour block of time, are available throughout Hampton Roads and by mail. Any remaining tickets will be sold at the start of the walk, in the graveyard of Trinity Episcopal Church.
New this year for those in line will be a free Gothic organ concert inside the church. Trinity will also have its annual bazaar, which includes refreshments, in the parish hall.
In addition, most stores in the Olde Towne Shopping District will remain open later than usual, allowing visitors to browse and buy before and after the walk.
And for those who don't want to wander too far from their designated spots, a concession cart with munchies and soft drinks will be set up right outside the church.
``Last year was one of the best we've had in terms of being organized,'' said Gollihue, who has been a part of the Ghost Walk for about 12 years. ``I was just super pleased with how nicely that whole thing went.''
Although the stories remain the same year after year, many of the people on the Olde Towne Ghost Walk are repeat customers.
Gollihue can cite many reasons. One is that the Ghost Walk has become such a social event that it's a good excuse for friends and families to get together.
``And it's safe,'' he added. ``It's not something real scary.''
A third reason is ``some folks with children . . . may now have a new crop of kids that are old enough to go,'' he said. ``And maybe it's been so long since the older ones went that they'd like to come back.''
Nonetheless, the committee tries each year to vary the walk somewhat. This year, a new story will be told at a new site: the big green house in the 300 block of Court St., across from Crawford Bay.
``I thought we needed a little fresh blood,'' said Jenni Crowe, a volunteer in charge of the actors since 1993.
Crowe perused some books containing ghost stories and found one about a man who becomes a boarder at a haunted house.
``When he goes to sleep, there's a thunderstorm and the ghost of a young girl appears to him and asks him to come to the cemetery to help her pick up her tombstone that has fallen over,'' said Crowe.
The man cowers under the covers until the spirit disappears and eventually he is able to fall back asleep.
``In the morning, he wakes up and goes to the family cemetery and sees the tombstone of a young girl toppled over. The man flees in terror, never to return,'' said Crowe.
Money raised from the Ghost Walk each year is pumped back into the community by the Olde Towne Civic League.
``This year, the big project is buying that house at the corner of London and Washington, doing the external rehabilitation and then putting it on the market,'' said Gollihue.
Last year, the walk cost organizers about $3,000 and brought in about $6,000 profit.
``Each year we take on a big project,'' said Gollihue. ``One year we helped Trinity Episcopal Church with money to restore the brick wall around the cemetery.
``And another year we used the money to microfilm the old Norfolk County records dealing with Olde Towne,'' he said.
The profits also are donated to local churches and organizations like Crime Line and Oasis Social Ministry, which provides a soup kitchen, thrift shop and emergency food pantry to those in need.
In addition to the Ghost Walk being a successful fund-raiser for the civic league, the event is also good public relations for Portsmouth, said Gollihue.
``Particularly for our neighborhood and for the Olde Towne shopping district,'' he said. ``It attracts people to things that they probably forgot were here. . .
``And hopefully it encourages people from other cities to come back in the daytime and take the walking tour of Olde Towne to just get a better sense of what the buildings look like,'' he said.
Then, pausing: ``I can't think of a downside to this.'' AT A GLANCE
What: The 15th Annual Olde Towne Ghost Walk
When: 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. Oct. 27.
Where: All tours depart from the cemetery of Trinity Episcopal Church, High and Court streets, and end at the park at Middle and Glasgow streets.
Tickets: $5 per person. Children not yet old enough to walk are free. No rain date. No refunds.
What else: It is strongly recommended that tickets be purchased in advance. Advance tickets can be purchased for a specific one-hour interval from the following locations:
Churchland Orthopaedics, 110 American Legion Road.
Art Jones Travel Service, 418 Market St., Suffolk.
Olde Towne Gallery, 341 High St.
Mary Perkins Gifts, 1610 Hilltop W., Virginia Beach; 329 W. 21st St., Norfolk; 701S N. Battlefield Blvd., Chesapeake.
Pfeiffer's Books, Cards, and Fine Wines, 434 High St.
1846 Museum Gift Shop, High and Court streets.
By mail: Send a check made payable to Olde Towne Civic League, along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope and the time you want to attend to Olde Towne Civic League, P.O. Box 35, Portsmouth, Va. 23705.
For information: Call 399-7758 or 393-3750. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
Actor Michael LeMelle will play the role of Isaiah, the
groundskeeper at the Grice-Neely House who drowned in the Elizabeth
River.
File photo illustration by MARK MITCHELL
Reggie Hardie played the gardener for one of the tales on last
year's Ghost Walk, which attracted 2,400 people.
by CNB