OPENING NIGHT

In New Haven, Connecticut, Myrtle Gordon is a famous but troubled middle-aged actress performing out-of-town previews of a new play called The Second Woman before its Broadway run. While leaving the theatre after a performance, Myrtle signs autographs and encounters an obsessive teenage fan, Nancy, who runs after Myrtle into the street and is struck by a car. The incident unsettles Myrtle, who goes to the girl's shiva, though her family greets her coolly.

Myrtle struggles to connect with the character she is playing in The Second Woman, finding that she has no motivation beyond her age. Over the course of numerous performances, Myrtle departs from the play's script in myriad ways, including changing her lines, throwing props around the set, breaking the fourth wall, and collapsing on stage. This frustrates others involved in the play. The writer, Sarah Goode, attempts to force Myrtle into facing her age. Myrtle admits to her that she has been seeing the apparition of Nancy—the teenager killed in the car accident—which Myrtle believes is a projection of her youth.

Myrtle's state of mind continues to deteriorate, and she begins to drink heavily. She imagines Nancy attacking her, and later she throws herself against the walls of Sarah's hotel room, breaking her sunglasses and slashing her face. The incident disturbs Sarah, who expresses her wish to have Myrtle replaced in the play, feeling she is psychologically unable to perform. After storming out of a rehearsal, Myrtle visits Sarah's spiritual medium for help and has another violent encounter with her vision of Nancy, this time fighting back and "killing" Nancy's ghost. Myrtle attempts to seduce Maurice Aarons—her leading man and a former lover—but he refuses.

Myrtle fails to show up on time for her call on opening night. When she finally arrives, Myrtle is so drunk that she can barely stand. With the audience growing restless, director Manny Victor demands the show go on. Myrtle struggles through the show's opening scenes, collapsing before her entrance and again on stage. As the show continues, Myrtle finds something of a rhythm. By the end, she and Maurice go off script and improvise the play's final act, to the producers' chagrin and the audience's rapturous applause.

On opening night, Myrtle arrives drunk and struggles through the performance, but eventually regains her composure, improvises the play’s final act with Maurice, and receives rapturous applause.

The ending resolves Myrtle's internal crisis by showing her ability to reclaim the stage and improvise in the face of her unraveling. It suggests that creativity and vulnerability are inseparable for artists, and Myrtle’s connection with her audience is both hard-won and cathartic. The improvised climax underscores the film's commitment to authenticity and personal truth, emblematic of Cassavetes’ style.