Carol, who tasted her first success in holding an audience in a high-school play, and Julia Gregg, a classmate as stage struck as herself, join Phyllis Marlowe's apprentice group in New York. In this setting, Carol beings to learn about herself as an actress.Phyllis Marlowe's criticism of her first performance is hard to take, but not half as painful as Mike Horodinsky's ruthless verdict. Mike is one member of the apprentice group whom Carol thoroughly dislikes. Their antagonism flames into open warfare when Mike almost succeeds in getting Carol away from the stage altogether. However, when the real test comes, these young students meet it with such ingenuity and perseverance that even Carol and Mike forget their differences in the common bond of the theater.

Her apprenticeship at Phyllis Marlowe's Repertory Theater behind her, green-eyed Carol Page now faces her first real job as second ingénue at the Richards Village Theater, Winasset, Maine. Along with her go her former classmate Julia Gregg and clever young Mike Horodinsky - Julia as apprentice, Mike as assistant stage manager. In a rambling old house by the sea, Carol, Julia, and Mike live with the other members of the Richards Theater. Here their days are filled with learning parts, attending rehearsals, painting scenery, and absorbing as much as possible about the business of a summer theater; nights are filled with the excitement of performance. Here, too, Carol learns what it means to combat such forces as townsfolk who frown on the stage as evil, and Maine fog and rain which seem intent on keeping away an audience. She learns how to meet discouragement and how to cope with a girl named Orchid, a professional member of the cast whose training gives her an advantage over Carol and whose glamour is as effective as her technique. Most of all, Carol and Mike discover the meaning of the theater - its demands, its disappointments, its rewards - and it is with a deeper realization of their love for it that they turn their eyes toward Broadway.

"Carol's stage career enters a very exciting and interesting phase. It takes her out over the country on the hardest yet most colorful assignment of ""show business."" Carol goes ""on tour."" But not before the play in which she earned her first big part proved a smash hit on Broadway and she was on her way to losing her head from the resulting publicity. Her friends, Julia Gregg and caustic but devoted Mike the assistant producer, manage to prick the balloon for her and Carol comes down to earth solidly enough to accept a role in Miss Marlowe's production of The Merchant of Venice. It means more hard work and travel with no let-up from city to city as well as learning the new discipline of playing Shakespeare, but Carol accepts the challenge to develop her talent under the master playwright of them all. Carol's adventure in the theater is sure to inspire her readers to follow their dreams and reach their goals. "