David is 14—an age at which kids want to be grown-ups but, somehow, without changing, without giving up their kids’ games. Taking part in the end-of-year play will be a chance to step into the adult world—or at least a rehearsal for it.
Jon McNaught captures this transition with characteristic insight— the playground is suddenly too small, or has David outgrown it?— as David experiences his first heartache and his first secret drink, as he appears in all the scenes that he must play out as a grown-up, before he is really grown up.
