As others have said, while Joey may be in her 20s, her frustrating job search odyssey rings through the ages. This is a highly flexible piece that offers some great moments for Joey, Mom, and however many folks play the inevitably disappointing bosses.

Lainie Vansant captures the frustration of being fresh out of school and properly educated for nothing. At one point in my working career I spent almost 2 years looking for employment - I had a Master's degree, over 20 years of work experience, an honorable discharge with a year in Vietnam. I couldn't buy an interview. The extreme frustration of job searching without success provides enough dramatic tension for an entire season of theater art. This is a spectacular piece and deserves productions!

Oh the PTSD flashbacks! Any young person looking for their first job or any not-young person who once looked for a job but blocked it out of their memory will relate to this piece down to their bones. Vansant's clever use of a mom and masks is a perfect personification of how parental voices help screw up a situation we're perfectly capable of screwing up on our own without their imaginary input! A job search is always dehumanizing but this play triumphs over it with its instance upon even a flawed humanity.

Bonus: I now know what Riverboat Red is!