It’s the opening night of The Golden Egg on Broadway, and the wealthy producer Julia Budder is throwing a lavish party in her lavish Manhattan townhouse. Downstairs the celebrities are pouring in, but the real action is upstairs in the bedroom, where a group of insiders have staked themselves out to await the reviews: the excitable playwright; the possibly unstable director; the pill-popping leading lady, and the playwright’s best friend. Add to this a drama critic and a new-in-town aspiring singer, and you have a prime recipe for the narcissism, ambition, childishness, and just plain irrationality that infuse the theatre—and for comedy.