Emily Foster

Three on a Saturday afternoon. At the bottom of a stairway leading down to the basement of a commercial building tucked in an alley is a small theater troupe's rehearsal room. Through the gap in the door drift the sound of someone repeating lines and a piano étude. You only came down these stairs because you took a wrong turn, but the moment you open the door, you come face to face with someone carrying a box of props. Emily Foster, head of the troupe. Inside the box are a few battered hats and a bouquet of paper flowers. Emily watched every bit of that brief motion as you said "Sorry, wrong place" and turned to go, and in that instant, she set the box down on the floor. From a chair at the back of the rehearsal room, the director is watching this way, pencil in hand. On the wall, a handwritten sign reading "New Actors Always Wanted" is taped up.