The Last Row — Scene 1: The Empty Dressing Room

SETTING:
A cramped dressing room backstage at a small fringe theatre. A mirror ringed with bare bulbs. A clothes rack with a few costumes. A small table cluttered with a coffee cup, a script, and a phone. The walls are thin — we can faintly hear the murmur of an arriving audience.

TIME:
Eighty minutes before curtain.

AT RISE:
MARTIN VALE sits in a folding chair, reading his script. He mouths words silently, making small pencil marks in the margins. He wears a comfortable but neat jacket — the uniform of a man who attends opening nights without being part of them. A knock at the door.

---

KEIRA (offstage)
Martin.

MARTIN
It's open.

KEIRA enters. She's in her thirties, dressed in black, carrying a clipboard and a headset around her neck. She's the stage manager — efficient, unflappable, and currently hiding something large behind her professionalism. She closes the door gently.

MARTIN (not looking up)
I told Jamal the lights could wait until sound check. I'm still blocking the opening.

KEIRA
It's not about the lights.

MARTIN (still reading)
Good. Then it can wait until after.

KEIRA
No. It can't.

A pause. MARTIN looks up. KEIRA meets his eyes. Something in her tone makes him set the script down.

MARTIN
What's happened?

KEIRA
The cast. They've left.

MARTIN
Left the building? Left for dinner? We have a show in eighty minutes, Keira, please be specific.

KEIRA
They've quit, Martin. All of them. Except Leo — Leo's still here. But the others handed in their costumes twenty minutes ago. I tried to stop them.

MARTIN stares at her. A beat. Then he laughs — not out of amusement, but because it's the only defence he has.

MARTIN
That's not funny.

KEIRA
I'm not a comedienne.

MARTIN
They can't quit. This is my play. They wanted to do it. They auditioned. We had a read-through. We had — (he searches for the word) — we had momentum.

KEIRA
They said you gave them notes.

MARTIN
I'm the playwright. Playwrights give notes.

KEIRA
They said you gave them notes during the warm‑up. While they were stretching. While they were finding their headspace. You told Jenna her diaphragmatic breathing was "rhythmically distracting."

MARTIN opens his mouth. Closes it.

MARTIN
I was being helpful.

KEIRA
You told Raj that his interpretation of the Stranger was "aggressively wrong."

MARTIN
It was. The character is haunted. He's not angry. There's a difference between anger and —

KEIRA
Martin. They're gone.

The weight of it finally lands. MARTIN's hands go still on the script. The faint murmur of the arriving audience seems louder now, like a tide rising.

MARTIN (quietly)
All of them.

KEIRA
Leo's still here. He's in the green room. He said he didn't want to let you down. I think he's also terrified of you, but the two aren't mutually exclusive.

MARTIN
Leo's an understudy. He's barely off book.

KEIRA
He's the only actor you've got.

MARTIN stands. He moves to the mirror, staring at his reflection — a man who has spent three decades watching other people perform, now facing the possibility of being watched himself.

MARTIN
What do we do?

KEIRA (a beat, then carefully)
You know the lines.

MARTIN turns sharply.

MARTIN
No.

KEIRA
You wrote every word.

MARTIN
Writing is not performing. I am a critic. I sit in the back row. I have a notebook. I have distance. That's the entire point of me.

KEIRA
Maybe the point of you needs to change.

She says it without cruelty. MARTIN stares at her. Behind them, through the thin wall, a burst of muffled laughter from the audience — someone finding their seat, someone making a joke. The sound of people gathering to watch something.

MARTIN (almost to himself)
832. That's how many productions I've reviewed. Do you know how many times I've stood on a stage this side of the curtain?

KEIRA
Tell me.

MARTIN (a flicker of a smile that doesn't reach his eyes)
Including right now? Once.

KEIRA waits. MARTIN looks at the script in his hands — his own words, suddenly foreign. The lights in the mirror buzz softly.

MARTIN
Where's Leo?

KEIRA
I'll get him.

She turns to go, then stops at the door.

KEIRA (without turning back)
For what it's worth — I've read your reviews for years. You were always harder on the ones that mattered. The ones that took risks. You didn't know how to say "I was moved" without hiding behind a paragraph.

MARTIN (softly)
That's not a compliment.

KEIRA
It's not an insult either.

She exits. MARTIN stands alone with his reflection, his script, and the sound of an audience beginning to fill the theatre. He turns to the mirror and, after a long beat, places the script down on the table. He straightens his jacket. He looks at his own face.

MARTIN (to his reflection)
"Act well your part; there all the honour lies."

A pause. He almost smiles.

MARTIN
I quoted that once in a review. Alexander Pope. The actor hated it. Said I was telling him to stay in his lane. (beat) I probably was.

He reaches up and switches off the mirror lights. The dressing room is suddenly dimmer. He stands in the half‑dark, a man on the wrong side of the glass.

MARTIN
Right. Let's go meet Leo.

He exits. The stage remains empty for a moment. The murmur of the audience rises, then fades.