As renovations begin at the Shakespeare Theater of Memphis, life for the core members of the company seems to be falling into disarray. Their trusted director has just retired, and theater manager Thaddeus Deerforth dreads the arrival of an imperious, inscrutable visiting director. Claudette, struggling to make ends meet as an actor and destabilized by family troubles, is getting frequent calls from her ex-boyfriend --- and also the narcissistic, lecherous television actor who has been recruited to play King Lear in their fall production. Also invited to the cast is Malcolm Ruark, a disgraced TV anchor muddling through the fallout of a scandal involving his underaged niece --- and suddenly in an even more precarious situation when the same niece, now 18, is cast to play Cordelia.

When Natasha meets Michael, the stars seem to align. Although he is much older, they fall in love, and within months they are engaged. Shortly before their wedding, while Natasha is vacationing in Jamaica and Michael is in New York attending a wedding, the terrorist attacks of September 11 occur. Convinced that Michael is dead, Natasha makes an error in judgment that leads to a private trauma of her own. A few days later, she and Michael are reunited, but the horror of that day and Natasha's inability to speak of it inexorably divide their relationship into "before" and "after."