In Imperial Russia during the late 1890s, a rabbi's wife and her young son Zalmie escape to America while the rabbi is killed by the Cossacks. Shortly after their arrival in New York City, Zalmie is recruited by Louie, a performer at a burlesque house, to hand out chorus slips. As Zalmie grows into adolescence, he spends more time with Louie backstage at burlesque shows. When Zalmie's mother dies in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he begins working with Louie full-time at a small theatre. Though Zalmie aspires to be a singer, he is beginning to enter puberty and his changing voice becomes a significant obstacle. When World War I strikes, Zalmie travels the globe performing for the troops as the bottom half of a pantomime horse and sustains a wound to his throat during a German Empire airstrike, which ends his singing career.