The film opens with the final dress rehearsal before opening night, with an unfinished set and the cast still forgetting lines, missing cues, and mishandling props. Fellowes is reduced to cajoling, yelling at, and pleading with them to get things right. Complicating matters are the personal problems and backstage relationships of the cast and crew, which are simmering under the surface during rehearsal but erupt into the open as the play works its way across the country en route to New York.