Twelve-year-old Pal Gallagher is a newly minted New Yorker who loves to make people laugh and is hoping to find kindred spirits in her new city. Her older sister, Naomi, lives at the Rehearsal Club, a historic boarding house for aspiring actresses. Pal quickly gets swept up in the glamor and high-stakes of the theater world, and is drawn into a decades-old mystery about Posy, a boarder who was kicked out of the Club for reasons unknown.
In 1954, Olive feels like she is working harder than anyone to make it to Broadway ― along with the forty-four other young women who live at the Rehearsal Club. In comparison, her carefree friend Posy is making it look easy. Tensions rise when the two audition for the same part, kicking off a series of events that lead to Posy’s departure.
What really happened all those years ago? The truth involves a Broadway play called The Weekend House, a necklace and a secret that Olive has kept all these years ― until Pal and her new friends start digging into the past. What they learn could change the very fate of the Rehearsal Club itself.