A GHOST OF A CHANCE
TO KEEP YOUR COOL

An inventive binaural ghost story
gets under your skin—and into your
ears—with unsettling intimacy

Lucas Iverson

Written and directed by Jamie Armitage in collaboration with sound designers Ben and Max Ringham, A Ghost in Your Ear at Audible Theater’s Minetta Lane Theatre offers a ghost story literally in your ear. Running 90 minutes without an intermission, it’s unlike anything else playing in New York—and, for that matter, anything since Simon McBurney’s one-man Broadway play The Encounter. But whereas McBurney’s production explored an encounter with an uncontacted Amazonian tribe, this time we get a ghost story whispered into one ear while light caresses and scratches at the other. For those who enjoy ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response), this may be the play for you.

The aural experience here isn’t designed for relaxation, stress relief, or a sleep aid. Its purpose is to spook you through an unsettling intimacy and claustrophobia that may leave you wanting to shake off the experience before it follows you out of the theater.

Lucas Iverson

Upon entering, you encounter a glass wall spanning the front edge of the stage, reflecting only the audience. Headphones hang on the back of every seat. When the performance begins, lights reveal a recording studio on the other side of the glass, with another glass wall separating it from the control booth in the rear. Center stage stands a binaural microphone shaped like a human head. Sid (Owen Campbell), an audio technician, has hired his actor friend Lucas (Lucas Iverson) to record a ghost story. What begins as a straightforward cold reading gradually becomes something much more sinister. Eventually, the struggling actor, who desperately needs the job and paycheck, wants to quit and go home. But no such luck—for him or for the rest of us.

Campbell’s Sid is so natural and believable that you won’t anticipate his ulterior motives or manipulation until it’s too late. Iverson plays a voiceover actor so convincingly that you might think he’s playing himself, complete with the behind-the-scenes rituals of an actor warming up and excelling at a recording session. But as Lucas gradually loses control, he does whatever he can to save himself. At our expense.

Lucas Iverson and Owen Campbell

Anisha Fields’s set and costume designs are perfection. Beginning in realism, the setting gradually becomes more theatrical and surprising, allowing Ben Jacobs’s lighting to play a far more influential role in the storytelling and movement than the confines of a conventional realistic design would permit. I only wish an alternative to the recurring blackouts had been found so that the final blackout would clearly register as the end of the play. The actors’ entrance for the curtain call felt awkward without any applause; only when they bowed did we realize the play had ended.

The Ringhams’ sound design is extraordinary, from the head-shaped binaural microphones to the intricate sound cues that bring the story unnervingly close to home. At a few points, however, the designers resort to the cheap scare tactic of suddenly cranking up the volume to make us jump. It diminishes the effect of scares that would have landed just as effectively had the sound design trusted the tension it had already created.

Lucas Iverson and Owen Campbell

Armitage’s staging is spot-on throughout, although the rules governing the story’s world become somewhat confusing toward the end. Discussing the play with my theater companion afterward, we found ourselves uncertain about how to interpret certain developments. Even so, for those who enjoy being spooked, A Ghost in Your Ear sets a high bar for immersive theatrical storytelling. Despite an occasional misstep, it’s an experience that shouldn’t be missed.

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photos by Matthew Murphy

A Ghost in Your Ear
Audible Theater
Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane in New York City
90 minutes, no intermission
ends on December 12, 2026
for tickets, visit Audible Theater

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