Plays

The Happiness Trilogy consists of three plays about happiness in America, with each play set in a different social class. The plays are:

Augusta

(working class) Two women clean houses for wealthy summer people on the coast of Maine. When the national cleaning company brings in a new boss, the women have to prove themselves to the alternately abusive and seductive Jimmy. The desperate struggle to survive in a collapsing economy triggers a startling crime which provides the women with an unexpected ray of hope. 

The Pursuit of Happiness

(middle class) Annie and Neil place all their hopes and dreams on their bright and accomplished daughter Jodi, a high school senior. But Jodi rebels against her parents’ expectations and sabotages the college admissions process. Horrified that Jodi might not go to college, Annie decides the only hope is to get Jodi into her own alma mater. Fortunately , the head of admissions once had a serious (and unrequited) crush on her. The play explores exactly how far a mother will go to get her daughter into college.

A View Of The Harbor

(upper class) A twisted family saga set in a decaying mansion on the Maine coast. A young man attempts to avoid the expectations of his highly privileged family by inventing a brand new life and falling in love. As Nick struggles to create the solid, middle class future he has dreamed of, he discovers that escaping great wealth can be every bit as tricky as clamoring out of poverty.

Rounding Third

The tumultuous journey of two Little League coaches through an entire season from their first tentative meeting to the climactic championship game. Don believes in winning at all costs, Michael thinks the team should just have fun. Out of these conflicting philosophies, the real issue of the play emerges: How should we raise our children?

Something in the Air

A desperate man discovers the last sure-fire investment left on earth. A contemporary film noir, the play takes place in a nameless American city where Walker has hit rock bottom. He encounters a shadowy power broker, Neville, who sets him up with a can’t-miss financial opportunity which somehow misses. Walker is torn between the dark forces that have trapped him and a fragile love affair that just might be enough to save him.

A Wonderful World

A close-knit family is shaken to its core when a minor misunderstanding spirals out of control. An ambiguously worded dinner invitation triggers hurt feelings and a scorched earth policy of truth telling. Loyalties shift and relationships are ruthlessly examined, causing family members to confront forbidden sexual attraction, long-ago affairs, debilitating illness, and, finally, a reconfigured family. The play probes the subterranean forces that nearly tear the family apart, and the mysterious bonds that ultimately hold it together.

Gunshy

A no-holds-barred comedy about marriage, divorce, infidelity, infertility, incompatibility, eternal love, household accidents, and diets that no one should ever try. Evie and Carter have divorced after fifteen years of marriage. Evie is having an affair with an aggressively insecure coffee salesman, and Duncan is involved with a very young and annoyingly thin gun-control lobbyist. Through bad luck and bad planning, the two couples end up snowbound in Duncan’s New England house. By the end, Duncan and Evie’s divorce is in a shambles and true love endures.

Below The Belt

Three American men work as Checkers for a mysterious multi-national company in a distant land. Merkin is the power-obsessed boss, Hanrahan the tortured middle manager and Dobbitt, the disturbingly eager newcomer. Away from their families and isolated from the other workers on the industrial compound, they are completely dependent on each other. However, their need to compete is as strong as their need to connect, and they guard their territory with baroque, subterranean strategies. The play is about loneliness and the deep existential pettiness of men attempting to work together.

The Downside

Set in the marketing department of a New Jersey pharmaceutical company during an all-or-nothing product launch. The company is betting its future on a break-through anti-stress medication, Maxolan-3000. The exhausted marketing team responds to the pressure by back-stabbing, cheating, naked power grabs, affairs, and a dangerous dalliance with the drug they’re marketing.

Alone At The Beach

George, a displaced Manhattanite, inherits his grandmother’s beach house in the Hamptons. Trying to expand his circle of friends and make ends meet financially, George opens his home as a summer share for a particularly prickly and mismatched group of Manhattan single people. The play follows the group’s bumpy summer of hook-ups, love affairs, friendships, hurt feelings, surprise parties, feuds, and unwanted visits from therapists.

Better Days

An exhilarating romp to the apocalypse. Set in a dying mill town in New England, the only employment possibilities are at a highly organized arson ring which is surgically burning first all the cars in town, and then the buildings. Ray, a former factory worker, has a religious experience when a mysterious voice starts talking to him, revealing one way out of the escalating despair. The play is about Ray and his followers as they careen between arson and hope, trying to find their way back to the days when life was good.