[1] Pleasure Man began as a rework of West’s short-lived play The Drag.
West made the protagonist of Pleasure Man to be heterosexual rather than homosexual, and refined the comedy and plot progression.
Initial rehearsals of the play began with West simply writing notes on scraps of paper and letting the actors improvise and find the scenes themselves.
[2] After the show, police arrested the entire cast of 56 after a performance at the Biltmore Theatre and they were charged with indecency.
[3] The events stirred the media and the Evening Post ran the headline "Mae West raid open crusade to purify stage; mayor Walker alleged sponsor of drive to purify Broadway".
An injunction allowed for a matinee performance the next day, but even with some bits of the show cut out, it was raided again, this time during the performance, and the cast rearrested, not before a drag queen delivered an oration about police oppression.
The scrubwomen are finishing up cleaning the theatre, looting scraps left from previous performances and gossiping.
Flo comes in as Bobby leaves and Terrill flirts with her as well and speaks of letters that he supposedly sent her in the past.
The act ends with Arnold fiddling with lights and Randall starting to rehearse with Dolores and the dancers.
The girls then start gossiping about guys and they begin to talk about the struggles between Dolores and Randall.
Lester arrives inviting everyone to Toto's big after-party as Arnold leaves to get gelatins.
Arnold speaks to Steve about technical things and a call boy arrives saying there is a girl who wants to see Terrill.
She has a suspicion that Terrill was involved in Mary Ann's rough past, but she isn't going to ask questions because she fears her safety will be in danger.
Toto and Stanley insist that she isn't at the party and they get him to leave quietly ending scene one.
Randall does not remember anything after he left the party and Stanley argues that Terrill deserved to be killed.
Paradise states that Terrill deserved his death after he struck down Mary Ann, which is revealed to be Ted Arnold's sister.
He had attempted to perform a surgery on Terrill that they would do on rats and other creatures in college "so that they could never propagate their own kind", but this resulted in his death.