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“You hear the music echo three times in there—once from the walls, once from the past, and once from something that ain’t either.”

Description - Exterior

A towering Art Deco monolith perched along the river, shaped like a grand chair facing away from the city. Limestone facades rise like judgment, columns flanking bronze doors tall enough to swallow sermons. The wind hits strange off the façade—whispers rise on the third gust. No one ever looks at the second window from the left after sundown.

Description - Interior

Grand staircases sweep upward through marble and velvet, while chandeliers hang like frozen lightning above the lobby. The theater itself is a golden cavern of perfect acoustics—too perfect. Some say it holds onto certain notes longer than it should. During certain performances, shadows are seen clapping from the balcony boxes—always the same ones, never purchased.

History

Completed in 1929, the Civic Opera House was intended as a gift to Chicago’s cultural class—and a final power play from utilities magnate Samuel Insull. It has outlasted scandals, blackouts, and brief periods of financial ruin. During World War II, it hosted intelligence briefings in the sub-basements. During the last five years, it’s hosted something stranger.

Owned By

Officially controlled by a cultural trust backed by North Side elites. Unofficially, there are rumors the Lyric’s founding backers made a deal during the building’s construction—one that involves keeping “certain performances” on the calendar.

Employees

• Thomas Winchell – Stage manager with a memory too perfect for one man
• Agnes Volta – Box office director, rumored to have a second life as a Veil archivist
• “Echo” Eldritch – Lead usher, part of no known payroll, always there
• Dame Reina Locke – Retired soprano turned vocal coach; swears she once sang into a storm and it sang back
• Sergio Black – Veil-sensitive janitor who refuses to touch the orchestra pit after midnight
• Anton Bredel – Resident conductor; famous, volatile, and convinced the music’s watching him

Regulars

• Cece Fields – Keeps a private box for Veil-warded meetings
• Joseph “Bagels” Testa – Occasionally attends gala nights to curry favor with trustees
• Kwan from the Grand Dukes – Believes the building is a perfect acoustic weapon
• Dr. Vega – Conducting long-term sound-and-Veil research in the lower rehearsal rooms
• The “Silver Couple” – Seen in matching attire, never on any guest list, never speaking

Notes

• The fourth floor dressing room corridor has a door that doesn’t open—but actors swear they’ve come out of it
• One aria from Rigoletto was banned after a chorus member passed out in perfect harmonic pitch with the overture
• The west stairwell occasionally “resets” to 1929, complete with oil-lamp flickers and faint radio static
• A cracked violin found in the pit produces no sound—but records interference on every audio device within 20 feet
• The Civic's blueprints don’t match its internal layout—there’s an entire sublevel no one will acknowledge
• They say the building was built to face west out of spite—but it hears the lake anyway, every night