Growing up in an impoverished family in the Bronx, Moss Hart dreamed of being part of the glamorous world of the theater. Forced to drop out of school at age thirteen, Hart's famous memoir Act One is a classic Hortatio Alger story that plots Hart's unlikely collaboration with the legendary playwright George S. Kaufman. Tony Award-winning writer and director James Lapine has adapted Act One for the stage, creating a funny, heartbreaking, and suspenseful play that celebrates the making of a playwright and his play Once in a Lifetime. Act One offers great fun to a director to utilize over fifty roles, which can be played a cast as few as twelve, and in a production that can be done as simply or elaborately as desired.