A C T  O N E

Hot. Quittin’ time.

A sweaty Irish-American kid (Sean Goonan, 20-ish) hawks strip club flyers in Times Square. A numb Park Avenue physician (Alice Delancey, late 30s) heads back to her office. A burnt-out Italian-American wife (Marie Leo, early 30s) shelves Hustler in her Brooklyn bodega. A raging black girl (Cora Johnson, 19) tags trash bins with spray paint. City dwellers from high to low round out the scene. And they sing [I AM NEW YORK].

We drift seamlessly between locales as each lead comes front and center. Cora’s a simmering stew of feminism, Black Power, and intellectual curiosity; a college student but also a rebel [FLIP-SIDE]. She’s also Marie’s sole employee, their banter both witty and confrontational. Marie, once a pretty peacenik, and still a spit-fire, tries to convince herself to accept what life has become [TAKE A RIDE].

Marie reaches out to her estranged sister, Alice, on a whim, and their phone call is an awkward game of catch-up, Marie full of sarcastic resentment at being left behind and Alice distracted by a multitude of personal issues—including a recent separation from her husband. Alice hangs up abruptly just in time to get hit on by a smarmy doc who laughs off her questions about a promotion. All three women sing [THIS MAN’S WORLD].

Sean returns to his basement shit-hole to find his neighbor’s left his newborn daughter, Jodie, alone. Sean’s a recovering addict and now a single dad, his girlfriend AWOL and with his savings. He wonders how he’ll feed the baby and what. Watching her sleep, he’s overcome with hope despite it all [TINY].

Meanwhile, Cora bumps into her Uncle Roderick, a Black Power soldier turned Vietnam vet turned panhandler, and gives him a piece of her mind. They debate the nature of freedom and the realities of fighting for it [SLAVE].

Alice, while taking her own blood to do a pregnancy test and her mind still reeling from her sister’s call, has a run-in with the night janitor in which she picks up on a heart problem and dispatches him to the ER. Feeling a rush, her numbness starts to lift [THE CURE].

Sean, out looking to buy baby formula and already primal and desperate, is jumped by a couple of drinking buddies. They attempt to coax him into the abyss while he fights using thoughts of a future with his little girl [BRIDGE AND TUNNEL].

Marie feels the walls caving in on her when she discovers both her husband’s marijuana stash and a gun she never knew he had. She lashes out at Cora, who exits in a burst of aggression.

[POWER] brings us to a climax with Sean reaching the bodega in desperation. Cora gives him nothing but attitude. Marie is a bundle of frantic nerves, locking herself in. Alice has taken the train to Brooklyn to see her sister and discover if this feeling’s for real. Sean pounding on the door. Cora trying to pull him off. Marie screaming from the inside. Alice wandering. Street people urging it all on. Sean pounding harder.

Until the lights go out. The power. Everywhere. And the glass shatters.

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A C T   T W O

It's dark. And it'll stay that way.

Eerie silence. Then the chaos builds, the ensemble chanting, the principles singing [LOOT]. Fights break out between street people, Sean, and Cora in the darkness and ensuing confusion. People trying to get in the door. Marie screaming in irrational terror. Sean begging to come in. Breaching the entrance.

A gunshot.

Then quiet again. Cora and Sean fallen through the doorway. The street people scattered. Marie screaming, though now completely out of her head. Someone's down. And now they all barricade themselves in that little bodega, in the dark, with the fires and looting and the noise exploding outside.

When Alice turns up at the door, she finds a babbling Marie. Tonight they'll reconnect as Sean and Cora discover each other for the first time [WHO ARE YOU?]. Why is this other person really here, they wonder. I'm trapped, and maybe there's no help coming but you.

Tempers flare, buried racism emerges, delirium provides revelation, and Alice's skills will once again be put to the test. The pressure cooker outside continues to blow [LOOT: Reprise] as somebody braves the streets on a mission.

Alice and Marie uncover childhood admiration and pain as the blackout's state of forced fantasy allows them to imagine they're the people they always wanted be [IN THE DARK].

Sean, still holding onto his daughter and the life she could have, sings [TINY: Reprise] as Cora comes to the realization that her anger's been hurting her the most, and it might be time for a change [JUMP].

As the sun comes up, we've lost someone. And the others are changed, ready for a new path that's a little less dark. [LIGHT]