Joe Gardner, a middle school band teacher at the beginning of the movie, feels as though his real life hasn’t started yet. He gradually blocks out the classroom noise as he sits at the piano during rehearsal. The movie demonstrates that the only thing that makes him feel completely present is music.
He is excited as he walks around the city after receiving the offer to perform with Dorothea Williams. His everyday world appears to be at last open and full of promise due to the bustling traffic and the bright autumn street. This evening’s performance plays a role as an evidence to Joe that his life is meaningful.
The moment he falls into the manhole the story breaks this dream. Joe wakes up as a blue soul on the path to the Great Beyond and argues that he cannot die because he has a show tonight. By the end of Act 1 the film has turned his dream into an obsession and has raised the question of what a life is worth when it is tied to only one goal.