Witty, touching, and insightful, Playback revisits the 17-year-old Mari Caldwell of Shine Until Tomorrow, now 34, to tell the story of a woman obsessed with the past who must risk the future to learn to live in the present "Once upon a time there was a summer." That's the way the bedtime story starts, the one Mari Caldwell tells her little girl. It's also her secret story of waking up one day in San Francisco, 1967, having time-traveled to the tie-dyed Summer of Love. But she was seventeen then. Now, at 34, where Mari once saw 60's idealism, she now sees only disillusionment. Newly divorced and stuck in a settled-for career, Mari's failed at giving her child the perfect family she'd envisioned. That weird weekend in the sixties- the rock band she crashed with, the musician she loved, the hit song he wrote for her- lives in the way-back of her mind. Did it even happen? She's not so sure… Until it happens again. Playback rewinds Mari's life as she makes a second visit to Haight-Ashbury in 1967, now autumn. The band, Mari's rival, and her first love all see the 17-year-old girl they met in June. But inside, adult Mari faces both tender and devastating choices. What if, regardless of how the times have a-changed, love changes everything after all? What if it even changes her?
