Awake and Sing is based on the early writings of Clifford Odets, a playwright involved in the Group Theater of the 1930s whose body of work served as a cogent and tangible document of the period’s liberal thinking and protest. A record of the potential of life, often overlooked within a context of spiritual and physical exhaustion. The film looks into the ideas of acting and realism, through scenes that seem unscripted and theatrical scenes. It begins the discussion where Odets left off, as a disillusioned screenwriter, living in Hollywood, and working for television.