It's 1978, and two Columbia University students are getting ready for a Saturday night. But one of them, who considers himself a bit of an outcast, has a rather unusual plan; he's going to try to get into the world's most exclusive nightclub and disco, Studio 54. He then, literally on the other side of the street, meets a girl who turns his world around just a bit.

Two acts of this play take place in 1939, and one in 1964. All revolve, indirectly, around the New York World's Fairs of those years. It is a story of intra-family relationships, dreams shattered by the force of history, and of the aspirations of second-generation immigrants in America. The main theme involves the continuity of generations and of youth across decades. Many of the issues these characters face are still being faced by young people from immigrant families in America today.

This play takes place before and after the Battle of the Somme during World War I, in 1916. It is less a static piece than it is a revue of sorts, featuring a framing device in the present day. After a short prologue in present-day London, the first of two main scenes takes place in a trench the night before the main battle. Two young railway workers-turned-soldiers, one from Newfoundland and the other from Britain, discover their common backgrounds, and talk about their commitment to the cause, though they are from diverse parts of the British Empire. One of them is a poet, and he marvels at the ability of his generation to find art and poetry amid the slaughter. The next day, we are taken to a field hospital, where wounded veterans of the battle discuss the carnage. A nurse, in a soliloquy, laments the carnage and what it has done to her and her generation. The fate of the officers from the night before is implied, and the wounded men proclaim that they have done their part for the empire. An epilogue in modern-day Newfoundland provides a brief interaction between the generations.

Shortly after the Civil War, a young veteran of the war finds no place for him in post-war society, specifically because of his sexuality. He wanders into a town where he encounters a former officer. The two have never spoken before, but they are familiar with each other, and specifically, are united by their admiration for a former superior who died in the war. They discuss the past and the future, and in the end, while they realize they cannot change the world, despite a final tragedy of sorts, each achieves a measure of peace.

In a series of vignettes, we see not only the choices and the effects of those choices made by a man (who appears only in prologue and epilogue), but also the genesis of society's view on cigarette smoking between the 1960s and 2010s. In most of the vignettes, this character is referred to either in the third person, or cast members break the fourth wall to address "him" directly.

The present. Prior to a National Hockey League game between the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins in Washington, D.C., four men wait in line to enter the arena. In alternating dialog, they seem to reflect certain stereotypes of men one might find in the city, but once they begin interacting with each other, the stereotypes become less certain.