The play takes place in Dennis Ziegler's apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in March 1982. Dennis's friend Warren Straub, a dejected 19-year-old, has just been kicked out of his house and stolen $15,000 from his abusive lingerie-tycoon father. Dennis, the more wily and domineering of the two, spends some of the money on cocaine, hoping to sell it to a friend for much more. Jessica Goldman, an "anxiously insightful" fashion student, comes over and Warren hopes that he can use the money to entice her into bed.  The play explores timeless issues of adolescence and maturity, as well as the Reagan Era in which it is set: the characters feel adrift in 1980s-style materialism.