P. Dowd insists on including his friend Harvey in all of his sister Vetas social gatherings. Trouble is, Harvey is an imaginary six-and-a-half-foot-tall rabbit. To avoid future embarassment for her familyand especially for her daughter, Myrtle MaeVeta decides to have Elwood committed to a sanitarium. At the sanitarium, a frantic Veta explains to the staff that her years of living with Elwoods hallucination have caused her to see Harvey also, and so the doctors mistakenly commit her instead of her mild-mannered brother. The truth comes out, however; Veta is freed, and the search is on for Elwood, who eventually arrives at the sanitarium of his own volition, looking for Harvey. But it seems that Elwood and his invisible companion have had a strange influence on more than one of the doctors. Only at the end does Veta realize that maybe Harvey isnt so bad after all. Mary Chase received the Pulitzer Prize for this play in 1945. A celebrated success: This play has become one of the most successful and popular plays ever offered to non-professionals. GENRE: Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy.