Willa places the ancient "Snow White" story in a realistic America setting about 1915. The jealous queen is Regina Worthington, an aging beauty whose stage career has soured. Snow White is her beautiful and talented stepchild Willa. The cottage of the seven dwarfs has been changed into a traveling medicine show run by a failed Shakespearean actor named Dr. Alfonzo and his two odd-ball companions: a flamboyant Irish Indian called Chief Tonka and a dancing dwarf named Billy Bug. They sell Chief Tonka's Elixir of Life a highly alcoholic concoction that is supposed to reverse aging.