Plot summary

Margo Channing is a renowned and well-respected Broadway actress, her recent successes a collaboration with Producer Max Fabian, Playwright Lloyd Richards, and her current boyfriend Director Bill Sampson, with Bill, Lloyd, and Lloyd's "non-business" wife Karen a foursome as friends. They all have to deal with Margo's volatile insecurities, especially around the elephant in the room, namely that many are starting to have to suspend belief of forty year old Margo playing ingenues, i.e. characters in their twenties. Age also factors into Margo's doubts about her relationship with thirty-two year old Bill. Into their lives enters twenty-four year old Eve Harrington, outwardly a star-struck innocent who idolizes Margo in having seen every performance of their current play, Aged in Wood, because of Margo, Karen noticing her as a constant fixture outside the theater after every performance. After learning her hard-luck story and seeing her enthusiasm especially concerning anything concerning the theater, Margo hires Eve to be her personal assistant. But some, such as Margo's friend and maid Birdie Coonan, view Eve with suspicion, as her enthusiasm is a little too ardent. Eve slyly using opportunities slowly reveals her true scheming intentions, which those in this circle begin to notice, some sooner than later. What happens with Eve in her ultimate goal to be the Margo Channing of her generation is affected by theater columnist Addison DeWitt, whose power lies in being able to convey what he wants to the masses through his column.—Huggo