Meanwhile, as Howard continues to give the door hearty thumps with his shoulder, Eleanor and Denny Cochran, who plays the corporal, at first pretend not to hear the thudding, and, with no further lines, start making out, then add some sexy moaning. A thin ripple of laughter lifts off the audience. After what seems like an hour but is probably no more than a minute, Cate and Stig reach the door. Stig nudges Howard aside while he hits the door with a brick wrapped in a sweatshirt. The scene lumbers on from there, a cart with a broken wheel.

Later, Cate is too dispirited to chew out the stage manager, who was smoking a joint out back when his door stuck.

“It was a dumb play anyway,” Joe says once he and Neale are backstage. “The door just made it a funny play.”

“Just put it behind you, honey,” Neale says, bracketing a hand around the back of Cate’s neck. “Come by in the morning. We’ll cheer you up.”

“We can make pancakes,” Joe says, which causes tears to loosen in Cate’s eyes.

Behind Neale, Cate notices Graham go by, toward the dressing room. What’s he doing here? But before this thought gets to its question mark, she knows it’s Eleanor.

“Nothing you did made that play any worse than it already was.” This is Maureen, who has found her way into the small huddle. Cate introduces everyone, then puts a stop to the general consolation. “I know the sticky door wasn’t my responsibility, but it was part of my set and that makes me look bad. If I keep working on plays this terrible, plus doing such a terrible job on them, I’ll probably eventually be banished. Lightly. Casually. I’ll have to do dinner theater in the Wisconsin Dells. Or dinner theater in the round. Where the stage revolves. Do they still have those?”

“In Florida,” Maureen says. “I think they still have them in Florida. But you won’t have to go there. This is just a small reversal, a small erasure on your résumé. You’re lucky it didn’t happen anywhere important.”

Cate thinks it’s good that Neale’s first impression of Maureen is seeing how kind she is, but almost immediately the moment evaporates and Neale is steering Joe outside, home to bed, waving over her shoulder as they go.