Meet the Cavendishes, the ultimate theatrical family in 1920s Manhattan. Matriarch Fanny is an ailing grande dame who longs to return to the stage. Her middle-aged daughter, Julie, reigns as the biggest star on Broadway. Granddaughter Gwen is being groomed to enter the family business, though her stockbroker boyfriend can’t understand why she would want to. Also in the mix are Fanny’s ne’er-do-well son, Tony, a movie star on the run from a scorned woman and various legal scrapes; Fanny’s not-so-successful actor brother Herbert and his (mediocre) actress wife, Kitty; and others who come and go at the family’s posh East Side duplex.