This quartet of high-school chums' dreams of recording an album ended in death in a collision with a bus filled with Catholic schoolgirls on their way to see the Beatles' American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.

The songs they sing during the course of the musical include: "Three Coins in the Fountain"; "Undecided"; "Gotta Be This or That"; "Moments to Remember"; "Crazy 'Bout Ya, Baby"; "No, Not Much"; "Sixteen Tons"; "Chain Gang"; "Perfidia"; "Cry"; "Heart and Soul"; "Lady of Spain"; "Scotland the Brave"; "Shangri-La"; "Rags to Riches"; and "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing".

Stuart Ross explained the production history of the revue, stating that it was initially produced at the West Bank Cafe in 1987 featuring Rusty Magee, John DiPinto, Jonathan Long, and William Misnik as the Plaids.

[1] The revue next ran at The American Stage Company at the Becton Theatre, Teaneck, New Jersey in December 1988 with Dirk Lumbard (Smudge), Don Kehr (Francis), John Caraccioli (Jinx) and Jason Graae (Sparky).

The Los Angeles Times reviewer wrote that the musical is "enormously entertaining feel-good fare...Plaid Tidings, however, significantly expands upon the original model, its self-contained ethos of sunny homage augmented with flashes of pathos and larger point.