Act 1

The Narrator introduces the story by describing the death of Cecily Smith, Mr McClam's wife and Harold's mother, on November 9, 1964 ("Fly By Night"). After the funeral, Harold and his father clean out Cecily's closet and find a record of La Traviata and a guitar. Mr McClam attempts to tell his son about why the record is important to him; however, Harold is fixated on the guitar, which Mr McClam lets him keep.

The Narrator jumps forward five months to a 'smoky club', where Harold performs a song ("Circles in the Sand") using his mother's old guitar. The Narrator cuts Harold off mid-song when he realises he has skipped a large part of the story.

The Narrator then takes the audience back in time to introduce Daphne, a young woman living in South Dakota who dreams of moving to New York and becoming an actress. Her mother agrees to let her pursue her dreams providing she takes her sister Miriam with her, and although Miriam is initially reluctant to leave her home, Daphne manages to convince her, and the two set off for New York ("Daphne Dreams"). Daphne is forced to take a job at a coat and shoe store while attending auditions, none of which are successful. One of these auditions is with the playwright Joey Storms, whose script she describes as 'worse than garbage' after being insulted by the producer.

Shortly after this audition, Daphne meets Harold, who is working as a sandwich maker at a deli run by the grumpy Crabble, and he makes her lunch. A few weeks later, he asks her out, and they kiss ("More Than Just a Friend").

The Narrator once again disrupts the chronology, taking the audience back in time to show Miriam on the night before she and Daphne leave for New York. Nervous about moving, Miriam finds comfort looking up at the stars, which she associates with her dead father ("Stars I Trust"). On Miriam's first night in New York, she has an unsettling encounter with a Romani fortune teller, which reinforces her worries about living in the city. However, she becomes more optimistic when she gets her dream job: waitressing at the Greasy Spoon Café, a 24-hour diner in Brooklyn ("Breakfast All Day").

The Narrator takes the audience forward to New Year's Day, 1965, when the playwright Joey Storms enters Daphne's store and declares her his muse ("What You Do To Me"). He begs her to star in his new show, entitled 'The Human Condition'. Daphne is ecstatic and goes to the deli to tell Harold her news. He proposes to her and she says yes ("More Than Just a Friend (Reprise)"), and decides that Harold and Miriam should meet.

That night, Miriam gets lost on her way to the diner and runs into the fortune teller again ("The Prophecy"). They say that Miriam will meet her soulmate that night, and tell her of three signs: the question "What does it look like when time stops?"; the numbers five, two, and seven; and a mysterious melody. Miriam goes to the diner and sees that the only person there is Harold. The two hit it off and Miriam sings the fortune teller's melody for Harold, who realises it is the perfect fit for the song he has been writing. Miriam is amazed by this and tells Harold everything about the prophecy, announcing "You're my soulmate, I think". When Daphne enters and introduces Harold to Miriam as her fiancé, Miriam is mortified.

The fortune teller later finds Miriam and warns her that there is a second part to the prophecy: she will have a love affair with her soulmate, and then she will have a great fall ("The Prophecy Part 2").

Although Miriam vows to avoid Harold, he can't stop thinking about her. He writes a song for her and performs it at the 'smoky club' The Narrator showed the audience earlier, tricking Miriam into attending by telling her that the wedding band Daphne asked her to book is playing there that night. This time, The Narrator allows the scene to complete and Harold finishes his song ("Circles in the Sand (Reprise)"). Afterwards, he finds Miriam in the crowd, and they kiss.

Act 2

Miriam is filled with guilt over kissing her sister's fiancé and flees to South Dakota ("Pulled Apart"). With Miriam gone, Harold falls into a state of depression. He and Daphne move in together, however they rarely see each other as she spends so much time rehearsing with Joey. Mr McClam calls his son repeatedly, however Harold can't bring himself to answer the phone. At work, Harold and Crabble complain about the state of their lives ("Eternity").

The opening night of Joey's play is set for November 9, 1965. On 'Opening Eve', he presents Daphne with a new song ("I Need More") which references her acting dreams and her strained relationship with Harold. That night, both Daphne and Harold dream of escaping their empty lives ("The Rut").

The next morning, Harold's alarm clock breaks and he sees it as a sign: "this is what it looks like when time stops!". He books a train ticket to South Dakota to find Miriam. As he waits for his train, The Narrator talks us through the activities of the other characters: Mr McClam wants to mark the anniversary of his wife's death by seeing La Traviata, but the show is sold out; Daphne and Joey prepare for opening night; and Crabble, alone at the deli, tries to make as many sandwiches as possible ("At Least I'll Know I Tried").

Harold is about to board his train when he spots Miriam, who has returned to New York to see Daphne's play. She explains why she can't be with him, but he convinces her to have one lunch with him ("Me With You"). This lunch lasts for hours, and as they are about to part ways, the northeast blackout hits and the lights go out.

Mr McClam, who was about to take his own life by dropping his record player into his bath, believes that his wife sent the blackout to save him. He goes outside and tells a small crowd of neighbours the story of how he met his wife, and the significance of La Traviata ("Cecily Smith").

Meanwhile, the blackout - which struck just as the curtain was about to rise on the play - causes Joey to have an epiphany, and he decides he needs to leave New York. He asks Daphne to come with him, but she refuses as living in New York is her dream.

Harold and Miriam, caught up in the romance of the blackout, decide to run away; however, Miriam looks up at a clock and sees that the time stopped at 5:27. She stops in her tracks, remembering the prophecy, and is hit by a speeding car. At the hospital, Daphne and Harold learn that she has passed away ("Fly By Night (Reprise)").

Grief-stricken, Harold spends hours wandering around the dark city, eventually finding himself on his childhood stoop, where he is comforted by his father. He goes to his apartment, where Daphne sings 'Stars I Trust' on the roof. Together, they look at the sky and mourn Miriam ("November Stars").

Cast

Characters

• The Narrator – The Narrator guides the audience through the story, while also portraying several minor characters such as the fortune teller and the producer.
• Harold McClam – A sandwich maker and aspiring musician who is caught between the sisters Daphne and Miriam.
• Mr McClam - Harold's father. He spends much of the musical mourning his wife, Cecily Smith.
• Daphne – An aspiring actress who moves from South Dakota to New York in the hopes of achieving her dreams. She is engaged to Harold, although their relationship is unhappy.
• Miriam – Daphne's sister. She reluctantly follows Daphne to New York and becomes a waitress in a 24-hour diner. She believes Harold to be her soulmate.
• Crabble – Harold's co-worker, a grumpy sandwich maker who was once an air-traffic controller.
• Joey Storms – A troubled playwright, he is inspired by Daphne's harsh criticism and casts her in his new play, 'The Human Condition', which he wrote with her in mind.
• Cecily Smith – Mr McClam's deceased wife. They met when she was nineteen years old and the two of them attended La Traviata together.

2014 Off-Broadway Run