Alphabetical Order takes place in the library office of a provincial newspaper, a scene of permanent and utter confusion. The cluttered chaos of the room is matched by the life of its manager Lucy and her associates. It is a scene of warmth and easy if somewhat juvenile and irresponsible light heartedness until Leslie, a new young assistant with a passion for organization, enters.

In a short time, she has transformed both the lives of its inhabitants and visitors into something orderly, neat, arid and colorless. An announcement that the paper is to close leads in Leslie's absence to a revitalizing and glorious orgy of destruction and return to chaos. But Leslie can coolly cope with even this crisis and Lucy is left smiling wryly at the second, and final, end of the play.