Kylie Jean Carter knows she would be perfect to play the Queen of Hearts in the class play, but the new girl, Paula Dupree, also has her sights set on the role.
Bright but unenthusiastic middle school student Charlie Joe Jackson signs up for the school play in an attempt to get straight As on his last quarter report card in order to avoid having to go to Camp Rituhbukkee over the summer.
When Ellie McDoodle signs up to help with her school's production of The Wizard of Oz, she gets more than she bargained for as she helps paint sets, plan costumes, and cast the show, which leads to her first big fight with best friend Mo.
After he is given the part of George Washington in a school play, Gilbert is worried that he will not remember his lines and decides to be very honest all the time, which leads him to have a greater understanding of what it means to be honest.
Allie's theatrical hopes are crushed when, instead of being cast as the princess, she is given the role of the evil queen in the fourth-grade class play.
Fourteen-year-old Jaime has always been a doormat, but her diary reveals how getting the lead in a school play, finding her first boyfriend, discovering her dream, and helping her best friend cope with being pregnant transform her life.
Eighteen-year-old David Ellison, a senior at Oak Fields Preparatory School which is only a few miles away from the Stanford University campus, tries to reconcile his desire to attend Juillard instead of an Ivy League university as is expected of him, while also wondering why he seems dissatisfied with his long-term girlfriend after being cast opposite an interesting new student in the school play.
