Miss Saigon

Act One

It’s April 1975 in Saigon, Vietnam; near the end of the Vietnam War. Backstage at Dreamland, a Vietnamese bar, club, and sometime-whorehouse, the Engineer (who owns Dreamland), introduces the bar-girls to their newest cohort: 17-year-old Kim, an orphan who escaped her hometown after seeing her family massacred (“Opening Act I”). All the bar-girls are eager to impress the American GIs, who they hope will help them escape Vietnam. The Engineer, himself, is eager for a visa, hoping -- like the girls -- to flee Saigon before it inevitably falls to Viet Cong rebels. He sends the girls onstage to perform a false pageant, under the auspices of choosing the next “Miss Saigon.”

In the crowd are two American GIs, Chris and John. Despite Chris’ reluctance to join in, John convinces him that a night on the town (and possibly with a girl) is just the ticket to help them forget the horrors of the war in which they are fighting (“The Heat Is on in Saigon”). The “Miss Saigon” contest