Synecdoche, New York 2008 Theater director Caden Cotard is mounting a new play Fresh off of a successful production of Death of a Salesman, he has traded in the suburban blue hairs and regional theater of Schenectady for the cultured audiences and bright footlights of Broadway Armed with a MacArthur grant and determined to create a piece of brutal realism and honesty, something into which he can put his whole self, he gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in Manhattans theater district He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a small mock up of the city outside As the city inside the warehouse grows, Cadens own life veers wildly off the tracks The shadow of his ex wife Adele, a celebrated painter who left him years ago for Germanys art scene, sneers at him from every corner Somewhere in Berlin, his daughter Olive is growing up under the questionable guidance of Adeles friend, Maria Hes helplessly driving his marriage to actress Claire into the ground Sammy Barnathan, the actor Caden has hired to play himself within the play, is a bit too perfect for the part, and is making it difficult for Caden to revive his relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel Meanwhile, his therapist, Madeline Gravis, is better at plugging her best seller than she is at counselling him His second daughter, Ariel, is disabled And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one As the years rapidly pass, Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece Populating the cast and crew with doppelgangers, he steadily blurs the line between the world of the play and that of his own deteriorating reality As he pushes the limits of his relationships, both personally and professionally, a change in creative direction arrives in Millicent Weems, a celebrated theater actress who may offer Caden the break he needs