Leadville, CO-1882. Silver Baron Horace Tabor shells out an outrageous sum of money to convince Oscar Wilde to interrupt his lecture tour of America's Wild West and direct a production of Romeo and Juliet with his lover, Elizabeth McCourt, playing Juliet. Tabor's intent is to pressure Augusta, his wife of more than two decades, to grant him a divorce so he can marry the younger and much more alluring "Baby Doe." Wilde agrees, but he must find his players from Leadville's undistinguished population of miners, hookers, barkeeps and gunslingers and at the same time maintain his artistic integrity, not an easy task in a riotous boom town. Wilde discovers that in matters of literature and the heart, the settlers of the Wild West are no less enamored of or any less knowledgeable of Shakespeare than his devotees in London and elsewhere.