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.

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.

In a 20th century American town, a young man spies on a decisive duel between his neighbor and her son.

A professor tries to convey to his students the magnitude of the most perfectly crafted poem ever written in the English language: “Lycidas.”

A young woman makes a detour on her way home to visit a man she met on a train. Though the man is married, the woman hopes to rekindle the spark she felt during the train-ride.

A young Shakespearean play actor finds himself stuck in 6 million year time loop being observed by high-school aged aliens. As John relives the same morning repeatedly--one where his wife leaves him--he becomes more aware of how important connections are as time is not as infinite as he assumes.

A man reflects on his complicated summers with his father.

In discussing the altercations witnessed over the course of the day, Stephen Elwin and his family grapple with question of whether the downtrodden and those burdened by prejudice are nonetheless responsible for their own breeding and behavior. Elwin’s earnest and idealistic daughter Margaret valiantly defends their maid, who happens to be Black and also named Margaret, until she witnesses 'the other Margaret' breaking a piece of artwork.

In Michigan, a recently divorced professor reflects on what it means to exist, first alone in his empty apartment and then alongside his student in a mission to find a missing girl.

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