Two men putting on a production for their New York theater company seek out a legendary, elderly actor, but upon finding him, they meet a man as dilapidated as the theater he once worked for.

A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

A fiercely competitive screenwriter is initially furious when the biggest production of the year gets handed to an Austrian foreigner - then astonished when he reads what the Austrian writes.

An elderly shopkeeper tells a customer about his experiences as a prominent actor's understudy for various decades. The customer witnesses how the old man's obsessions with his unfulfilling acting career still occupy his everyday thoughts and behaviors.

In a near future world, a famous computerized drama director is pushed beyond his artistic limits when a random science fiction writer asks him to adapt his novel for the digital stage—for the alluring incentive of real gold payment.

An American writer travels to Sophia where he meets a famous poetess. He falls in love with her and her attitude.

A theatre actor visits his aging father in a nursing home after speaking out about the Vietnam War.

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.

A man tells the story of his son-in-law who used his poetry skills to make real money.

An amateur painter attends his first art show, hoping to sell some of his work. He soon understands, however, that the path to success in art is not nearly as simple as he once perceived it to be.