The Happiness Shop by Lindsay Price play script cover

Production Tips for The Happiness Shop

Three middle school students find themselves in an odd curiosity shop. They don’t know what it is, where they are, or how they got there. But that’s no surprise. The Happiness Shop is not like any other. It is filled with Roppets.

A Roppet is not quite a robot and not quite a puppet. A Roppet is completely happy all the time. Full of smiles, hugs and hi-fives. Isn’t that all it takes for a middle school student to be happy? They’re too young to have problems.

Blake, Melanie and Wally know that’s not true. They all have pretty big problems. But in the shop they have one question to answer and one question only: What would you do to be completely happy?

With up to 28 speaking parts and easy staging The Happiness Shop is perfect for a class project.

Dramedy Character Study Issue-Based

Average Producer Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Tips from past Producers

Most of the cast are onstage for the entire show. Our stage is not large (32 feet across at the front) and we struggled with fitting everyone on it and being able to move around, especially when all the Roppets collapse at the end, so keep your space in mind. Also, getting middle schoolers to stand still after school is really hard, and many of them don't like smiling, so that was interesting. I eventually gave up on keeping the background Roppets totally still and happy--most did okay, but we definitely had some fidgeters, yawners, and ones that zoned out. Also, we struggled with lines a lot--especially the doctors (much of what they say is repetitive or similar), and in "the Blake scene." Get those Blake scene actors to drill their lines early in the process so it can be rapid fire during the performance! That's a hard scene. The show was still good, though. I really liked it, our principal really liked the message behind it, and, while I was worried about what parents might think at first, I only received positive feedback from them, too. Not every middle school may feel down the way the characters do, but they all know someone who does, and they surely have felt the doubt and anxiety expressed here, so don't let it scare you off. Good parents know that art/theatre helps us process these things, so most are going to be fine with it. But definitely present the "almost KKK joke" and what Melanie's depression troll says to her at the end of her scene to your principal to make sure they are okay with those before committing.