On the eve of the 2011 Arab Spring, Anna Linvill, an Arabic linguist and promising young singer, learns that her husband, Lt. Colonel Brian Linvill, has received orders to be the Defense Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya. Leaving her dreams in long-term storage, Anna packs up her two young children and her musical scores and follows Brian into Gaddafi's Libya. In an historic setting of breathtaking natural beauty, Anna finds crumbling theaters, burned pianos, and a complex, creative civilization suffocating under decades of cruelty, fear, and civil neglect. Corruption is rife, Gaddafi's brutal henchmen and all-seeing eyes are everywhere, human trafficking and wife buying are commonplace, innocent looking teenage girls are daring dissidents, and there are no rules- until you cross the wrong person. In Gaddafi's Libya, it is every man for himself.
Upon arrival, Anna and Brian join The Tripoli Players, an amateur theater group known for their risky, red-line crossing, cream pie throwing, singing and dancing filled musicals lampooning the Gaddafi regime. When they are hired to put on a touring Broadway review for the U.S. Embassy, the Tripoli Players become part of a complex diplomatic drama. They are stunned when the 2011 Arab Spring sets revolutionary fires across the Middle East, eerily echoing one of their most daring comedies. After the fall of the Gaddafi regime, it looks like the good guys have won, but soon, comedy turns to tragedy. The U.S. Ambassador, Chris Stevens, is murdered and Libya descends into civil war and anarchy. Soon, Anna, Brian, and the Tripoli Players learn that offstage, there is a fine line between a villain and a hero, and a tyrant lives inside each and every one of us, waiting for his cue.
