The School Play

One memorable scene from To Kill a Mockingbird was towards the end of the novel when Scout appears in a school play on Halloween. She plays the part of a ham, and during the play she misses her cue, and then rushes onstage at an inopportune time and causes a laugh.

I had a similar situation with my first school play, which occurred when I was in the first grade. I don’t recall the title of the play that we were performing, but I remember the story. The play was designed to reinforce to children the need for brushing, and in the story a little girl (played by the prettiest girl in my 1^st grade class) refuses to brush and floss her teeth. As a result, all of her teeth leave her mouth, and the rest of the play involves this girl searching through a fantasy land for her teeth. In the end, she finds them, apologizes, and agrees to brush her teeth.

I played the part of King Tooth; that’s right, I was the the king of Toothland, and it was in my kingdom where she finds her lost teeth. For the entirety of the play, 20 classmates and I—all with giant paper drawings of teeth covering our fronts--hid behind the rear curtain of the stage, waiting for the main character to find us. When she did, I had a long passage to give, but I couldn’t remember the words, and I had to have them fed to me three or four words at a time. Like Scout, I was sure I’d ruined the play. And like Scout, I was told later that I hadn’t ruined anything, that I was the cutest, funniest part of the play. I guess what I’m saying with all of this is I understand why Scout was so upset at the end of her school play. (314 words)