It's the opening night of The Golden Egg on Broadway, and the wealthy producer is throwing a lavish party in her lavish Manhattan townhouse. Downstairs the celebrities are pouring in, but the real action is upstairs where a group of insiders have staked themselves out in the producer's bedroom, waiting for the reviews to come in. Included are the excitable young author; the brilliant but unstable director; the pill-popping leading lady; and the playwright's best friend, an egotistical but insecure comic actor. Also present are a fawning, hypocritical drama critic and a would-be singer working as a part-time servant. The good natured bonhommie with which the evening begins grows steadily nastier—and funnier—as the reviews come in, and those assembled seek desperately to pin the blame on each other.