[1] It revolves around eight gay men who gather for three summer weekends at a lakeside house in Dutchess County, New York, where they relax, reflect, and plan for survival in an era plagued by AIDS.

[2] As with many screen adaptations of stage plays, the script underwent numerous changes, eliminating almost all direct addresses to the audience and the conclusion of one of the subplots.

The house belongs to Gregory, a successful Broadway choreographer now approaching middle age, who fears he is losing his creativity, and his twenty-something lover Bobby, a legal assistant who is blind.

Arthur and his longtime partner Perry are business consultants; John Jeckyll, a sour and promiscuous Englishman, is a dance accompanist; and die-hard musical theater fanatic Buzz Hauser is a costume designer and the most stereotypical gay man in the group.

Infidelity, flirting, AIDS, skinny-dipping, truth-telling, and soul-searching mix questions about life and death with a dress rehearsal for Swan Lake performed in drag.