Most of the characters who populate the play City of Girls and the novel of the same name are wildly eccentric. Vivian is the prime example of a square peg in a round hole. She comes from the wealthy class, which generally respects tradition and avoids scandal at all costs. Her only ally within her conventional family is Grandmother Morris, who dresses vividly and teaches her granddaughter to become an expert seamstress.

Vivian’s parents take the same disapproving view of eccentric Grandmother Morris as they do of their own daughter. They are appalled when Vivian gets kicked out of Vassar after her freshman year, and they simply don’t know what to do with her. The book states that the wealthy never speak of anything unpleasant, so the Morris family gets rid of its most eccentric member by sending her to live with oddball Aunt Peg in New York.

For the first time in her life, Vivian comes into her element when she meets people who are even more free-spirited than she is. Peg runs a chaotic production company where everything is in a perpetual state of disarray, yet plays are miraculously performed on time. She is married to a man that she never sees, a charming ne’er do well.