A play set in Florida in 1929 in a Cuban-American cigar factory, where cigars are sill rolled by hand and "lectors" are employed to educate and educate and entertain the workers. The arrival of a new lector is a cause for celebration, but when he begins to read aloud from Anna Karenina, he unwittingly becomes a catalyst in the lives of his avid listeners, for whom Tolstoy, the tropics an the American dream prove a volatile combination.