←Recommendations of Overqualified

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!

Loved this line: "I'm proud of you. Even if you're sleeping in my basement." Lainie captures the nervousness of job interviews and the expectations she attributes to her mother. Clever idea to have Joey wear different kinds of masks.

Oh man, was THIS play something I could relate to! Lainie Vansant certainly has her finger on the pulse of the modern day job search. The Catch-22 of trying to get work without experience is a nightmare we've all experienced at one time or another. But Lainie doesn't stack the deck against Joey so much that we hate the bosses. They all come across as real people. Joey just has the bad luck of not being the greatest interviewee. And that's another thing we can all relate too. This play should have universal appeal.

Job interviews were so painful for me, but the series of interviews Lainie Vansant presents in OVERQUALIFIED are so funny I almost want to try it again. The creative use of masks as Joey tries to show different sides of her personality and meet the interviewers’ expectations certainly adds to the overall enjoyment of this fun piece. Hope this one comes back to the stage soon!

A great short play that takes a comedic look at a relatable subject. I remember being in Joey's shoes, going from interview to interview and struggling to find both myself and a career. Audiences will love this charming comedy. I know I did. Perfect for short play festivals!

A relatable job hunt - would be fun to see all the different masks and what the actor does with them.

This short play reminded me why I chose to work for myself most of my adult life. Ms. Vansant brilliantly captures the angst, humiliation, and reality check one gets when they leave college and enter the real world. This is a perfect play for college festivals. Maybe a dose of reality before we leave college would serve us all well. Well-written with spot-on dialogue, I highly recommend this one-act! Brava!

A painfully funny and regrettably accurate exploration of the post college job hunt. This is rendered with vivid theatricality, bordering on surrealism. A true delight.