ACT I. In the Pacific Northwest woods, nine-year-old Henry and his father Tom share their special song ("Just Behind the Rain") while hunting the creature Tom has long been tracking: Bigfoot. Tom tears the map from his field journal and hands it to his son. The boy is ready to lead the way. Then a sudden storm becomes a mudslide. Tom is killed, and young Henry is carried to safety by an enormous figure he barely glimpses, as a man with a rifle watches from the shadows.

 

Years later, Henry graduates college and arrives in New York full of hope ("Standing on My Feet"), a hope the city grinds down over five years in a soul-numbing office job ("Standing on My Feet (Reprise)," "The Office Song") beside his best friend and deskmate Jenny, who is brilliant, overlooked, and can't get the boss to remember her name. Days before the twentieth anniversary of his father's death, Henry's mom sends a box of Tom's belongings. Inside, Henry finds the map from that day and Tom's marked-up almanac, and realizes his father had cracked a pattern: Bigfoot travels through a hidden network of portals, returning to the same spot every ten years, and the window opens next week ("Maps Apart"). When Henry falters (what if he gets there and it's all for nothing?), Jenny pushes him out the door: "If you don't go, then it already is." She takes over their make-or-break client pitch herself, even as she wrestles with a lifetime of staying safely in the corner ("My Corner"). Henry commits to the quest: finish his father's search, get the photo no one ever managed, and prove Tom was right ("Yeti or Not").

 

In a backwoods bar full of cheerful conspiracy theorists ("Would You Believe That"), Henry meets Chip Bauer, a celebrity Bigfoot tracker and Tom's old research partner, who offers to guide him ("Don't Toe the Line"). Henry visits his mom, who gives him his father's jacket, her blessing, and a warning about Chip ("Big Shoes to Fill"). As Act I closes, three engines fire at once: Henry hits the trail, Jenny preps the pitch of her life, and Chip reveals his true aim: not a photo of Bigfoot, but a trophy ("Can't Stop Me"). Henry looks up and finds himself face to face with an enormous silhouette. Blackout.

 

ACT II. Henry wakes in a cave and meets Bigfoot: real, articulate, weary, and very funny ("The Legend of the Bigfoot"). He is also the very one who saved Henry twenty years ago. But Bigfoot refuses Henry's request for a photo and takes him to his old stomping grounds, where he teaches Henry how portals work, needles him about Jenny, and insists that proof won't fill the hole Henry is trying to fill ("You Don't Know What You Don't"). Bigfoot reveals his own grief: he lost his wife and son through a portal years ago and stopped searching. The two wound each other where it hurts most: Henry accuses Bigfoot of hiding from the world instead of searching for the family he lost, and Bigfoot asks what kind of father buries his love at the end of a cryptic treasure hunt. Henry storms off. Back in New York, Jenny abandons her prepared pitch mid-presentation and tells the client, fading business icon Valerie Cross, the truth no one else will, winning the contract. Then, offered everything she thought she wanted (a promotion, even a partnership with Valerie herself), she realizes the one thing still missing is Henry ("My Corner (Reprise)," "The Ring").

 

Chip finds Henry and drops the mask: he'll harm Henry's mother unless Henry lures Bigfoot into the open ("Fortune and Glory"). On the clifftop, Bigfoot apologizes first, admitting he has been hiding all along, which makes Henry's confession land even harder: he's led a hunter straight to his friend. Before Bigfoot can escape, Chip arrives with a rifle. Henry puts himself between them, then uses the portals Bigfoot taught him: he vanishes off one side of the clifftop, reappears behind Chip, and the two grapple over the cliff's edge. Only Henry climbs back. All forgiven, Bigfoot finally offers the photo (they even snap a selfie) before Henry smashes the camera himself: he doesn't need proof anymore. Bigfoot then gives Henry the journal he recovered the day Tom died. In its pages, Henry finally hears his father's voice: Tom was never chasing proof, he was making memories with his son, and he was already proud ("Buddy"). The journal also holds the missing half of the map, revealing where Bigfoot's lost family may have gone. Henry hands it to Bigfoot and urges him to go find his family. When Bigfoot hesitates (what if it's all for nothing?), Henry answers with Jenny's words: "If you don't go, then it already is." The two part as friends ("Best Foot Forward").

 

Henry returns to the city, where Jenny has turned down every offer to start her own agency, and finally stops waiting: she kisses him first ("Finale Medley"). Years later, Henry and Jenny hike into the woods with their two children to visit old friends, as Bigfoot, reunited with his family, watches from the clifftop ("Just Behind the Rain").