Elmhurst Community Theatre

A washed-up, bit-part Hollywood actor, Curtis Booth, is hired to direct an amateur play in a small NH town. He doesn't want to work with the amateurs, but he is desperate for the small stipend he will be paid. The play is awful, and the characters are worse. On opening night the set falls onto the stage. Viewers think this is part of the play and see all kinds of symbolic significance in the collapsed scenery. The play is so bad that everyone loves it.
Between rehearsals Booth has been fighting off the advances of Leila, a woman with a jealous husband. At the cast party after the play is over, the husband shows up at the party with a gun, looking for the man who had been fooling around with his wife.
The theatre wants Booth to direct another play. He still needs money badly. He thinks that the new play can't be any worse than the one he just directed.
He is wrong about that.