Pictured: Ghost light tattoo on Jenna Goulart. Photo contributed by: Dylan Hubbard
Third-year theater major Jenna Goulart wanted a tattoo for as long as she could remember, much to the chagrin of her father.
When the time finally came, and she reached the legal age, she had to wait a year, thanks to COVID-19. But one year later, at 19, she was able to get her first tattoo on her upper left arm.
Goulart’s tattoo is a ghost light, an old-fashioned lamp that theaters traditionally left illuminated on stage.
“They used to be lit every night before everyone left, and they would be left on all night until the first worker came into the theater the next day and turned the rest of the lights back on,” Goulart said. “This was to signify that the theater was never truly ‘dark.’”
She has been performing in shows rather consistently since she was around six years old.
“At least two shows a year, every year, since my first,” Goulart said.
But due to the pandemic, not only did she have to stop performing, but the rest of the world had to as well. Suddenly, she could not do what she loved or even watch others do what they loved. And, in the midst of this dark time for theater mixed with her own mental health struggles, she waited until the moment was right and got her ghost light.
“It was to remind myself that I will always have this,” Goulart said. “Even when I cannot act, when I cannot work on shows, when I cannot watch theater being created, it will still be a part of me.”
Goulart chose her ghost light to reside on the back of her arm, specifically the space between her shoulder and her elbow.
This being her first tattoo and not knowing what the pain would be like, in addition to hearing that the pain was at its worst when the needle was in direct contact with bone, led her to choose a part of her body that was the most visible with the most skin around it to protect the bone.
“And it ended up not hurting at all, so I guess I chose right,” Goulart said.
Goulart said it was inevitable that she would get a tattoo.
“I have wanted a tattoo since as long as I can remember,” She said. “There’s something about being able to express yourself with art that is permanently etched on your body. It’s so dramatic, in just the way I love.”
And being a theater major who has spent more than a decade on the stage and has seen dozens of plays and musicals live, Goulart seems to be quite an authority on effective drama.
Now that the world has opened back up again, Jenna Goulart is taking advantage of the theater, starring in the University of Rhode Island’s student-run production of “Exit, Pursued By a Bear” in the Spring 2022 semester and playing Esmerelda in a Providence-based production of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
“After all,” Goulart said, “the theater is never truly dark.”