It's 1983, Wallingford, New Jersey, a sleep bedroom community. Edward Zanni, an seventeen year old aspiring actor, is ready to go to the school of his dreams, Juilliard, after a summer of mischief and creative vandalism. However, after his father, Al, remarries and refuses to pay for his tuition, Edward turns to his lovable group of misfit musical theatre friends as they engage in blackmail, forgery, embezzlement and various illegal tactics to raise money for him to pay for college.