Mayra is a dreamer and an idealist - and her noble aim, with her partner Josh, is to produce and direct an "updated" version of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. Her first mistake is her choice of the disastrous title, The Food Co-op; her second mistake is to cast the first four (and only) actors who show up for the audition. In addition to dealing with an array of actors' neuroses, Josh and Mayra are forced to dodge the persistent efforts of their theatre's landlord to collect his rent; their troubles are compounded by the incompetence of their useless agent, Eddie, who is more interested in dancing girls in spandex than high art. Meanwhile, the actors' lives are taking on eerie similarities to their fictional alter-egos in The Cherry Orchard. When a mysterious stranger shows up at the theatre, his resemblance to Anton Chekhov is undeniable - and even Mayra can't disprove his claim to be the dead playwright. Grateful for his presence, she turns to him for advice and inspiration. But a planned fund-raising party spirals into disaster, and the company's eviction seems certain when another mysterious stranger appears, claiming to be the famed actor and producer, Konstantin Stanislavski. He announces he has come to rescue the doomed production, but he and Chekhov quarrel like fishwives, with Chekhov accusing the famous acting guru of hamming it up in rehearsal. Their lives come to resemble more and more those of their fictional alter-egos as Mayra and Josh struggle desperately to keep their production on course, caught in the intersections of creativity and commerce, originality and banality.