In Dallas, a young man toils at his menial job while in Washington a young President studies poll numbers for the coming election. In New Orleans, a charter bus takes Bernie, the director, and the cast of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" to the Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival. All of the cast members have their agendas. In the "Cat" cast, "Brick" is Alex, a loner in love with his "Maggie," Jill, who has a tangled family history and a rapacious mother. Stage manager and confidant Howard, a farm boy, wants his friends to meet Tennessee Williams. These three are seekers. Bruce, the selected groom, uses family money to extort sex from Jill who wants to consummate her feelings for Alex. Clyde Vergets and Sylvia and Charles Halliwell, rich, debauched, pick up young people in the French Quarter in a jaded search for pleasure, though Clyde, bored with nightly cruising, craves a blossom to corrupt and destroy as he did his first love. The actor playing "Sister Woman" wants to harm Jill out of envy. The actors playing "Big Mama" and "Big Daddy," early incarnations of Clyde and the Halliwells, suggest Jill as a target for them to corrupt. Janelle, daughter to Walter Fontaine, the theatre's director, submerges her disappointment in physicality but is attracted to Howard. New Orleans is a crucible that will test them all. Each may achieve what is most desired, but a fatal hammer blow can strike anyone. As the fight of a butterfly in the Amazon can cause a tornado in Kansas, everyone is affected by everything else. In Dallas, and in New Orleans the characters are in place and the stage is set.
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