ACT I
The character Sam is a gender-neutral role, and we envisage it
potentially being played by male and female actors on different nights.
Everyone is getting ready for the night ahead. Some are in the bath, some are hanging out in their boxers, some are already on the bus, but they are all swiping on dating apps. Hopefully searching for someone to make their night, they SWIPE. They make their way to a dingy bar where, instead of paying attention to the potential partners in front of them, they stay glued to their phones. Two Cupids, Astrid and Kit, descend invisible to everyone there. Astrid and Kit are having a hard time matching people up; the humans are swiping past their soulmates too quickly for the Cupids to fire their arrows. Astrid and Kit call for the goddess Hera to ask for some help.
Hera agrees to create a new Cupid. She gathers a human soul and begins the transformation ceremony - the ceremony is tied to the soul’s heartbeat. However, this particular soul, Maya, has an arrhythmia which disrupts the transformation so it isn’t quite complete and Maya retains some of her humanity. This makes her different from the other lovestruck, obedient Cupids: she is cynical and questioning. She is unconvinced by the soulmate system [I AM ENOUGH].
Hera and the Cupids sing THE ONE to persuade Maya that matching soulmates is a wonderful thing. One of the mortals, Sam, is not swiping on their phone - they are apart from the crowd and seem sad. They sing ON YOUR SIDE about their heartbreak over their girlfriend who has left them. Maya is moved to help Sam, but before she can she needs to undergo Cupid training. Here she learns that she must match soulmates from a list of names that have been being chosen since the dawn of time and are absolutely immutable [THE TRAINING SONG]. The original parchment is on Mount Olympus and every Cupid has a copy, which updates as names are added. Maya can create coincidences to get people in the same place, fire her arrows to get people to notice each other and even use dream dust to enter people’s dreams and get them to think about each other. But dream dust has to be used carefully: a whole bag would take a Cupid all the way to the home of the gods on Mount Olympus, where Cupids aren't allowed to go.
Maya wants to set Sam up with someone else, but Sam’s name isn’t on the list. Kit tells her that you only get one soulmate and if that doesn’t work out then that’s it - Sam is destined to remain heartbroken and unable to get over their girlfriend. Maya feels that’s extremely unfair and she becomes frustrated with the limits of her powers. She follows Sam, determined to help.
Sam is playing the piano for a dance class at a retirement home. Here the residents are bickering and giving Sam a lot of grief. Two of them, Maud and Mabel, clearly fancy each other but are too stubborn to act on it. Maya decides to help out. She goes into their dreams where, suddenly able to dance like young pros, they live out their fantasies on a fantastical dream date [MAUD & MABEL DATE - SWING DANCE SEQUENCE]. Maya notices that in the dream they can see her.
The dream works: Maud and Mabel finally admit that they like each other. But Kit and Astrid catch up with Maya and, horrified by Maya's disobedience, tell her that as they are not soulmates on the list, Maud and Mabel are not allowed to be together. Coincidences are engineered and Sam gets a phone call to say Mabel’s family are transferring her to a home in Scotland. Maud & Mabel are split up and Maya is outraged - what’s the point of being a Cupid if you can’t make people happy?
The Cupids tell Maya that Hera is angry with her for breaking the rules and will be coming down. To get away from it all, Maya goes to where she secretly really wants to be: inside Sam’s dream. Here, Sam can see her, and Maya wants to be seen. They have a very romantic dream, but not in the Cupids hearts-and-flowers love fantasy way - in a mundane, normal sort of way, until some things start to feel familiar. The dream becomes a series of memories, as Maya begins to remember the life they had together [DUST]. Maya is the girlfriend Sam was singing about - she left when she died suddenly from her arrhythmia.
Sam wakes up and Maya is forced out of the dream. She is devastated - she now remembers their whole brief life together. She also realises that because of the soulmate system Sam can’t move on and can’t be happy. Maya vows to do something about it, to go to Mount Olympus and see if the Gods can fix this. Maybe she and Sam can somehow be together again. [IT DOESN'T HAVE TO END THIS WAY]. She uses all her dream dust on herself and disappears.
END OF ACT I
ACT II
Maya meets The Fates at the Gate to Mount Olympus who test her conviction and offer her a warning but Maya is determined to enter so the Fates let her through.
On Mount Olympus she is shocked to find the Gods are swiping through humanity randomly matching people - we are their twisted entertainment and the soulmate system is just a way of keeping us distracted [SWIPE REPRISE]. Hera has been running the show all this time to please her husband Zeus, who treats her badly. A couple of little cherubs run around causing mischief. Maya tries to steal the original parchment with the list of soulmate names so she can alter it, but she gets captured and thrown into jail. She's told that no name written on the parchment can ever bring someone back from the dead. Incarcerated, when all is lost, Maya realises how grateful she is for the time she did have with Sam - she just wishes she could tell them [SINGLE].
In jail, Maya meets Eros - the original Cupid who has been imprisoned by the Gods to contain love [OPEN LOVE]. He explains that a Cupid is only created when one half of a pair of soulmates dies young and that as a form of entertainment the Gods often send the Cupid back to be around their soulmate unawares. Because she retained some of her humanity, the pain and grief of being ripped from Sam kept Maya against any idea of love when she was first reborn. Her instinct to rebel against matching people on the parchment was a side effect of this. The parchment! Maya reveals she managed to grab it before she was imprisoned. And every Cupid has a copy... She may not be able to reunite with Sam, but she can at least still do something. Maya writes the truth of the system onto the parchment to get the message out. Up til now, the other Cupids were very obedient to the system - Maya doesn't know if they'll come to the rescue. But one by one they start to appear on Mount Olympus [CUPIDS/TRAINING SONG REPRISE], and bust Maya and Eros out of jail. Maya starts a revolution to tear down the soulmate system.
Zeus and Hera step in to stop it but Maya and the Cupids shoot Zeus with their arrows, forcing him to feel human love which for him is unbelievably painful. Maya is about to destroy the parchment in the flame of Mount Olympus, but Zeus warns that if she does so romance on earth will descend into anarchy, and what's more, the bond that brought her and Sam together will be broken. Humans need the system. Maya needs the system. Maya hesitates, but then says she and Sam didn't love each other because they were soulmates or perfectly matched. Fate may have brought them together, but it did not keep them so: they made the choice to work on what they had every single day. She destroys the parchment so everyone is now free to love if and who and how they want.
Enraged, Zeus is about to destroy Maya when Hera steps in to save her. Hera has been moved by Maya and Sam’s story and the lengths to which Maya is willing to go to help Sam. Hera realises she wants something better for herself [THE DISCONNECTED LIFE]. With Zeus weakened, she vows to take control and clean things up on Mount Olympus. The Cupids have earned the right to ascend to Elysium now that everyone is free to love. Hera gives Maya some dream dust so that she is able to visit Sam before she goes.
Back on earth there is celebration where everyone sings about the many and various things they love - it's not all about romance [I'LL FOLLOW]. Mabel is still missing Maud, but Maud is returned to the retirement home and she and Mabel can be together [SWING ME ONCE MORE/SWING THEME REPRISE].
Maya is able to enter Sam's dream one more time and say the goodbye with Sam they never got to have [ON YOUR SIDE REPRISE]. Afterwards, as Sam leaves, Maya lifts her last arrow to shoot Sam so Sam is able to move on. But the arrow freezes mid-flight. Maya doesn't understand. Sam explains they're both in Sam's dream and Sam can affect things too. They tell Maya they’re not ready, not yet. The grief they’re feeling is only because of how much they loved her. In time they may move on but it’s ok, they don’t need to be fixed. A cherub takes Maya's hand and she ascends to Elysium.
END