The Pursuit of Happiness

Annie and Neil have placed their hopes and dreams on the shoulders of Jodi, their bright and high-achieving 18-year-old daughter, a high-school senior. Their own regrets and slightly diminished lives will be transformed if only Jodi can get into the right college. But Jodi has other ideas. She wants to take charge of her life, not perform it for the enjoyment and bragging rights of her parents. So she completes her college application but doesn't send it in. By the time Annie and Neil discover this, the deadline has passed and they face the ultimate horror of a child who isn't going to college. Desperate measures must be taken. Annie goes off to her college reunion where a classmate named Spud Ketchum, who had a passionate and unrequited crush on her in college, is now on the admission board. This troubled, lovesick man, unhappy in his own life, just might be able to get Jodi into college. It will be a test of what Annie is willing to do for her beloved daughter. Meanwhile, Jodi's painfully honest college essay has a profound effect on everyone who reads it: her parents, Spud Ketchum and Tucker Nugent, a self-appointed "friend of the family." All are forced to reconsider the choices they've made in their own lives. The Pursuit of Happiness is about a culture run amok with bare-fanged competition and a crazed obsession with achievement. The turmoil of college admissions exposes the fault lines in the family and forces Annie and Neil to confront how far they've drifted from their youthful ideals. By the end of the play, Annie, Neil and Jodi are teetering on the verge of a new and more authentic chapter in their lives.