Act I, prologue

The Heidi Chronicles opens in a lecture hall at Columbia University in 1989. Heidi Holland, a forty-year-old art history professor, delivers a lecture on three women artists, Sofonisba Anguissola, Clara Peeters, and Lilly Martin Spencer. She points out that while these women were either highly regarded in their time and/or extremely talented, they are virtually unknown today.

Act I, scene 1

The year is 1965, the setting a high school in Chicago. Sixteen-year-old Heidi attends a dance with her friend Susan Johnston. When the scene begins, Heidi and Susan look out at the dance floor singing along to "The Shoop Shoop Song." A boy, Chris Boxer, asks Heidi to dance, but she declines, telling him she doesn't want to leave her friend. When a ladies' choice dance is called, Susan hikes up her skirt and runs out on the floor to ask a boy she likes to...