ACT I
One fall Saturday in 1660, Hester Prynne walks through Boston wearing her scarlet letter and leading her 12 year-old daughter Pearl. The townspeople notice Hester and pointedly describe the Biblical “good wife,” which clearly she isn’t. Pearl wonders why everyone is looking at them. (Opening)

Pearl and Hester encounter the Reverend Dimmesdale, and Pearl asks Dimmesdale about the origin of her mother’s ‘A’. Hester, eager to avoid that conversation, sends Pearl to the blacksmith. (Metal) Bellingham sees Hester and makes lecherous comments about her to Dimmesdale, who defends her honor. Bellingham mentions to Dimmesdale that Hester can legally be married in a month, as her husband will have been missing for 14 years. A mysterious stranger who calls himself Roger Chillingworth comes to town, and witnesses Pearl beat Susannah Wilson with a ladle, causing a near riot until Dimmesdale intervenes, commanding the people to treat Pearl as if she were his own daughter. (If You Know What I Mean)
As Hester attempts to send Pearl home, Pearl blames Susannah for the fight, and badgers Hester to explain her past. Hester refuses, angering Pearl, who threatens that she won’t stay in the dark forever. (She Started It) Pearl goes home, while Hester heads into the forest to collect herbs. The women of town ogle Chillingworth as Hester takes Pearl home. (If You Know What I Mean) Chillingworth meets Bellingham and inquires about Hester’s marital status and Pearl’s parentage. He infers the identity of Hester’s father, but keeps his suspicions to himself.

Back at Hester’s cottage, a very angry Pearl lashes out as she builds a fire, nearly burning down the cottage. (Spark) Chillingworth, who has come to see Hester, interrupts her. Pearl tries to extract information from him, and he reveals that she might find answers to her questions in the forest at midnight. (Tell Me) Hester returns and is shocked to find her long-lost husband in her house. Chillingworth he tries to seduce her, and, failing that, threatens to force her to return to him as his wife and lose her freedom if she does not reveal the identity of her lover. Hester is not swayed, and casts Chillingworth out of her house. Hester resolves to take Pearl and leave town while trying to convince herself that she is not sexually attracted to him. (Irresistible)

The Reverend Dimmesdale pops in and tries to convince Hester to stay in town and marry him… in a month, once her husband is legally dead. His promises to create an ideal family life for her do not persuade her to stay, and he leaves her cottage dejected. (Pancakes)

Just outside Hester’s cottage, Chillingworth intercepts Dimmesdale. The two men reach an implicit understanding of the role of the other in Hester’s life. Chillingworth threatens to reveal Dimmesdale as an adulterer. (A Man Like You)

Hester tucks Pearl in for one last night in their cottage, and Pearl makes a final attempt to extract answers from her mother. When this fails, Pearl sneaks out of her window into the forest to meet Chillingworth. (Tell Me (reprise)) There in the woods, Pearl encounters a group of three witches – Hunch, Squiddle, and Nobs – and they are about to sacrifice her when Chillingworth arrives and suggests they use her to scry in their witchglass. Chillingworth offers Pearl the opportunity to see the answers to her questions in the witchglass, which requires her blood to function. It also binds her to eternal silence and inaction regarding anything she sees there. Furthermore, Chillingworth must travel with her in her visions as her guardian. Desperate for the truth, Pearl agrees, and asks the glass to show her how her mother got her ‘A’. (Sisters of the Belladonna)

ACT II
Traveling through the witch-glass, Pearl and Chillingworth are suddenly 12 years in the past, in the midst of a huge celebration. Pearl believes that her mother has done something fabulous to merit such a celebration, (Blessed) and is shocked when the people begin to jeer and throw things mother, who defiantly announces that she is still far more than a letter. (A) Pearl wonders if her mother was ever like her and concludes that her birth ruined her mother's life. (Before Today)

Chillingworth comforts Pearl, and she begins to suspect that he might be her father. Pearl asks the witchglass to ask her mother who her father is, and Bellingham and Dimmesdale interrogate Hester. Dimmesdale exhorts her to free her fellow sinner by naming him. Pearl forgets that the ghosts of the past cannot see her and joins in the calls to name her father. Hester, despite Dimmesdale’s pleas, is unmoved. (Who is the Father?)

Disturbed by the sight of her mother being shamed, Pearl asks to see her mother and father together at a time they were happy. Chillingworth tries to stop her, but she reminds him that it was her blood sacrifice, and therefore she can ask to see whatever she wants. Pearl and Chillingworth find themselves in the same forest clearing where the witches had been meeting, but thirteen years prior. Hester and a mysterious man enter for a romantic rendezvous. Pearl is thrilled by how happy her mother looks, while Chillingworth is unable to watch at all. Just before the cloaked man is revealed, Chillingworth can take no more shakes Pearl into bringing them back to the present. (You, Me, Love)

Chillingworth laments Hester’s treachery, and Pearl, who has completely misinterpreted the previous vision, explains to him that she has figured out that he, Chillingworth, is her father. He is unnerved by this and rushes off into the forest. Pearl takes the witch-glass herself and demands that it show her father in the present, intending to see where Chillingworth has gone. (Aren’t You?)

To her surprise, the witch-glass takes her to Dimmesdale. Pearl must come to terms with the fact that her father has been in plain sight her entire life, and that he is not her idealized father, but rather, he is just a man. (Supposed to Be) Dimmesdale is praying that God would rescue him from Hester’s departure, Chillingworth’s revenge, and his own sins. Pearl joins his prayer, and vows to go to him as he teeters on the edge of collapse. (Psalm 70) Pearl touches the witch-glass with her bare hands, jerking her back to the present.

The witches try to prevent Pearl from leaving, reminding her that if she acts on any of the things she has seen, she will break the glass, and if the glass breaks, she will die by noon of the next day. Pearl decides that she must go to her father, declares that she is not afraid of dying, shatters the witchglass, and sets off back to town to find Dimmesdale, carrying a shard of the witchglass with her. (Conspiracies and Mysteries)

Chillingworth stops her as she heads towards town, and tells her that he is ready to be her father, but she refuses him, desperate to get to Dimmesdale. Chillingworth laments that he has caused the only child he ever cared for to come o harm. Hester, out searching for Pearl, finds him and tries to shake information about Pearl out of him. (The Warmest) He finally relents and indicates that Pearl has gone back to town, unharmed for now, but due to die by noon. Hester takes Chillingworth captive and they return to town.

In the center of town, Pearl finds Dimmesdale and greets him, to his surprise, as her father. She tells him about her experiences in the forest and that she is now doomed to die but that she’s glad to because she loves him. Taking the shard of the witchglass from her, he asks her to let him be her father, choosing to die in her place. She agrees, and they celebrate that they have this moment together. (At Last)

Hester and Chillingworth join them. Dimmesdale kisses Hester, and announces that he has taken Pearl’s penalty upon himself. He threatens to have Chillingworth executed for witchcraft, then offers him mercy, and goes up onto the platform.

Confessing that he too should be adorned with the letter ‘A’, Dimmesdale is joined by Hester and Pearl, and, finally free from his burdens, Dimmesdale dies in Pearl’s arms as the townspeople bless him. Hester and Pearl regard Dimmesdale, the man they both loved. Hester heads home, offering to answer all of Pearl's questions that night. Pearl offers Chillingworth forgiveness, and he accepts. He leaves to begin his life as a free man. Left alone with Dimmesdale’s body, Pearl ties her hair up as a symbol of her transformation into a woman, then makes her way home, her journey completed. (Finale – Jubilee)