Acting Counsel for the Defense

The owner of a struggling playhouse, who had briefly been able to keep his theater solvent through his side job coaching defendants in criminal trials on how to comport themselves in the courtroom, resigns himself to the imminent closing of his theater, until he is visited by the one client who is still interested in his services, a man who is different from all his other clients in that he has yet to commit his crime, which appears to be murder. Initially unwilling to accept the man’s request, but tantalized by the money the man left with him simply for the privilege of being listened to, the owner, with the help of his assistant, devises a way to protect himself from any potential liability in the matter by presenting his lessons as a series of rehearsals for a one-man show about his experiences in the legal sphere, one that will involve occasional participation segments from the audience. His intentions aren’t entirely ignoble, however, as he is one of those instructors who harbors a secret desire to thwart any signs of promise in his students. Despite this, over the ensuing weeks, as the owner offers classes on how to make convincing 911 calls, break down movingly when the news about one’s loved one is delivered, and console those whose grief one is responsible for, his student shows alarming progress, and soon the owner finds himself using his theatrical skills to don disguises to pursue his client beyond the theater’s walls. The client always seems to stay a few steps ahead of his instructor, however, and soon the show’s solitary audience member begins to bring scenarios of his own to enact on stage, ones that suggest his crime is drawing ever closer, until the owner begins to take increasingly dramatic steps to stop his client, or at least to avoid being seen as his accomplice.