After a big fight with Ellen, Geoffrey has moved into a storage room at the theater. He is still fighting both his actors and Oliver who refuse to accept his ideas for the play.

In the meantime, Ellen has to find a way to get her financial records straight for the audit. She brings in her brother-in-law to help her - with unforeseen consequences.

Darren Nichols' idea of staging Romeo and Juliet doesn't sit well with his actors either. Sick of improvisation exercises and portraying signifiers instead of young people in love, Sarah (Joanne Kelly) and Patrick (David Alpay) ask Geoffrey to help them, who secretly coaches them since he promised Nichols not to 'interfere' with his production.

Anna starts a romance with an author whose new play is the subject of the festival's workshop.

Meanwhile, the controversial advertising campaign has the festival in more financial trouble than ever but Richard, totally under the influence of Sanjay Rainier, refuses to change course. So Macbeth goes into previews with hardly an audience. At the end of the evening Geoffrey fires Henry Breedlove for ignoring his direction and the festival has to face a season without its star magnet.