Tamsin Vale, twenty-four, waits tables at Lantern Yard Theatre and copies its star from the wings. Hollis Voss, forty-three, has been that stage's face for twenty years and belongs, legally and financially, to the producer she married. At the opening-night party he announces a search for a younger replacement. Tamsin hides her from the press in the loading bay and earns an audition, then a role, then a schedule Hollis rewrites meal by meal. When Garrick moves the girl into their hotel, the line between teacher and lover collapses. Hollis hands her a training card: show it and they are together, keep it in a pocket and everything is only rehearsal. An investor buys the scandal rather than bury it, the papers crown the newcomer and bury the star, a wedding ring keeps going back on. By opening night a mentor's contract worth a share of the box office and a stolen photograph of a kiss are in Garrick's hands - and Tamsin must choose between a stage built by others and the woman she loves.
