New York, NY — A Ghost in Your Ear, a horror play the audience hears through binaural headphones, is running at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre in the West Village through December 12. It is set in an audiobook recording session where the ghost story an actor is reading starts to haunt the studio, and tickets start at $59.
The Story: A Recording Session That Turns Into a Haunting
Lucas Iverson, from HBO Max’s The Pitt, plays the actor who arrives late to a sound studio and is handed the script of a ghost story to read, and Owen Campbell, from A24’s X, plays the engineer who cues the recording. As the session goes on, the horrors in the script begin to escape the page and haunt the studio. Every audience member wears headphones, and the show’s binaural sound “places everyone directly in a haunting world of sound,” according to Audible Theater.
Jamie Armitage, a Tony nominee whose credits include Six, wrote and directed the play, and Ben and Max Ringham did the sound design. It comes to New York after a sold-out run at London’s Hampstead Theatre Downstairs. “Truly terrifying headphone horror,” The Guardian wrote in its four-star review, and the Financial Times, The Standard, and Time Out also gave it four stars, according to Audible Theater’s release.
“There are loud noises. There are flashing lights. And, occasionally, there are things that go bump in the mic,” the theater’s audience note says. “If you are generally faint of heart, photosensitive or are of a more nervous disposition… you’ve been warned.”
Show Times, Tickets, and Run Time
The run was set to end November 22 and has been extended through December 12, which the theater’s page calls the final extension. Performances are at these times, with none on Mondays:
- Tuesday through Friday: 7 p.m.
- Saturday: 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.
- Sunday: 3 p.m.
- Halloween week: Friday, October 30, has performances at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m., and the October calendar shows no performance on Halloween, Saturday, October 31.
The show runs about 90 minutes with no intermission, and there is no late seating and no re-entry. TodayTix lists tickets from $59 and the show for ages 13 and up. A limited number of $35 rush tickets go on the TodayTix app at 9 a.m. Eastern, and $35 student rush tickets are sold at the box office from 1 p.m. on the day of each performance, with a student ID.
The theater is at 18 Minetta Lane, between Sixth Avenue and MacDougal Street, and the closest subway station is West 4th Street-Washington Square. Headphones are sanitized and inspected after every performance. Step-free access is available for the orchestra section, and the balcony is not wheelchair accessible.
More Immersive Horror Theater This October
San Francisco’s Black Cat Hotel is a walk-through vampire show through October 31, and Los Angeles has The Dark Wedding at Clifton’s from October 30 to November 1 and Through the Veil, a séance for eight guests. In New York, my guide to haunted houses in New York has Blood Manor in Tribeca and the haunts outside the city. Audible’s other Halloween release this month is its full-cast Dracula audiobook, with Jonathan Bailey as Dracula.
Tickets and the performance calendar are on the theater’s page for A Ghost in Your Ear.
