Happiness airs Sunday, December 14 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming live on the WXXI and PBS apps
After 20 years away, Broadway director Charlie Summers finds himself back in his childhood room, helping his mother at the local theater. The eclectic cast and crew there may lack professional skills, but certainly don’t lack passion.
Happiness, a new six-episode series from PBS, is a feel-good musical comedy-drama that is fun for the entire family—just in time for the holiday season. Centered on the highs and lows of an amateur theater group in New Zealand, the story follows Charlie Summers after he reluctantly returns home from a Broadway stint, helping his mother run the local community theater group Pizazz. Warm, funny and heartfelt, the opening scene features an airport flash mob, choreographed to the tune of Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody,” featuring original lyrics and choreography and continues to dazzle with original musical numbers from the fictional Pizazz production of “The Trojan Horse,”including “Troy Boy” and “Greeks Bearing Gifts.”