The Show Must Go On

Sydney is directing a Rock Musical called 'Pipe Dreams'. They have one week till opening night and nothing is going right. He has a great cast and a great show, but as our story opens he is lumbered with a rundown venue and his leading lady has just walked out. Sydney has a reputation as both a creative genius and a tyrannical megalomaniac. As a result no casting agent will vouch for this troubled production any more, so Sydney finds a new leading lady in Kat - who better to play a prostitute than a real-life working girl? Rehearsals proceed in fits and starts and in-between the many disasters that threaten to close the show down (including a literal broken leg), love blossoms between the two juvenile leads – triple-threat musical-theatre boy Michael, and his rock-chick co-star Angie; and also between Sydney and the new leading lady, Kat. Meanwhile the old hands in the cast – Bryan and Nick – place bets on whether the show will ever make it to opening night. As Sydney navigates the may crises, we watch the rehearsals through his eyes, and the show looks spectacular. But as the days wear on, reality overtakes the fantasy, and a harsher truth sets in to the performances … and the music. In particular, Kat's real life reflects too closely the character she’s playing, which triggers a breakdown when she comes to sing her big number. The only one who seems to understand her is costume designer, Sebastian – but he has his own problems we discover when he confides to Musical Director Patrick that he’s dying of cancer. When Kat runs offstage in the middle of tech rehearsals the stress finally gets to Sydney and his inner tyrant emerges. He bawls her out, exacerbating her already fragile grip on reality. The Show seems destined not to go on, despite all the hard work. But it isn’t about the show any more – people’s lives hang in the balance. In the end, as the theatre burns to the ground due to an electrical fault, Kat and Sebastian likewise choose death rather than reality. Only one of them will survive. Nick wins his bet – the show does not go on. Some people live for the theatre, some even die for it. Others find real life hard enough.