This is the 19th installment of a 100-day challenge to write a new vignette every morning.
Two seats were vacant: one near the fire exit and another in the center of the front row. Leah peered around the velvet curtain and watched as more patrons filed in and chose to stand, crowded, in the back rather than fill those two seats.
When one of her fellow cast members passed behind her, she nudged him and asked about the seats.
He scoffed and kept walking. Of course Stephen wouldn’t give her an answer; he needed an entire 57 minutes to get in character. He insisted that he’d just be a child playing house if he had a moment less, and if he had a moment more, he said, he’d lose himself to the character completely. He carried a track coach’s stopwatch for this sole purpose.
A man in a white “I Love New York” t-shirt entered the theater and approached the vacant seat near the fire exit. Other audience members gestured at him, swinging their arms and flapping their hands as if they could change his course with a magnet. He must’ve been from the Midwest; he just waved back. Leah knew she would’ve done the same a year ago. Minnesota, maybe. Or Wisconsin.
The man sat; the theater gasped. Leah didn’t understand why until the house lights flashed like lightning striking again and again. Glancing back, Leah saw Jordan, a whiz with set design, standing at the control panel.
They put a finger to their lips and whispered, “We’ve gotta keep the legend alive. Do you really think they’re all here for dollar-store Macbeth?”
Miles Away 