Joe Gideon is a theater director and choreographer trying to balance staging his latest Broadway musical with editing a Hollywood film he has directed. He is a workaholic who chain-smokes cigarettes; without a daily dose of Antonio Vivaldi, Visine, Alka-Seltzer, Dextroamphetamine, and Sexual intercourse, he wouldn't have the energy to keep up the biggest "show" of all—his life. His girlfriend Katie Jagger, his ex-wife Audrey Paris, and daughter Michelle try to pull him back from the brink, but it is too late for his exhausted body and stress-ravaged heart. In his imagination, he flirts with an Death (personification) named Angelique.