When Mandy Jenkins catches her husband Cornell out on a date with Eloise Jackson in a small cabaret in Birmingham, Alabama, she and Jackson have a fight. Months later, Eloise is living in Harlem and about to star in a musical, produced and directed by Ted Gregory, who hopes to be the first black producer to put on a show on Broadway. Mandy, meanwhile, has also moved to Harlem, and is hired by Gregory as wardrobe mistress at the suggestion of his secretary, Lena, with whom Gregory has fallen in love. But Gregory has problems getting backing for the show, and is unhappy that Eloise often comes drunk and late to the rehearsals. And things look hopeless when Eloise breaks her leg falling down a stairway while in a drunken stupor.