Based on author Ann Bannon's three wildly popular lesbian pulp fiction novels of the 1950s, the play celebrates an era when "the love that does not speak its name" began breaking the old rules.

The play takes place in pre-Stonewall New York City. Laura, a sensitive young Midwesterner, arrives in 1952 Greenwich Village to escape the heartache of a failed romance with her true love, Beth, who marries the steadfast Charlie, even though her heart belongs to Laura. Once in New York, the impressionable Laura befriends Jack, a jaded older gay man, crushes on her straight roommate, Marcie, and falls into the bed of Beebo Brinker, an aggressive and brash butch lesbian who has slept with half the West Village it seems.

Meanwhile, out in California, Beth is waging an internal war between her duty as a wife and mother, which she would like to walk away from, and her true nature, which she would finally like to give in to.