A bitter truth about our childhood and teacher's perception during school plays!

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Here is the hard truth, cute babies are always given the spotlight and main Character roles in school or kindergarten plays. In case you're wondering if you were a cute baby, smart or troublesome growing up there is a way to find out. Let's revisit our childhood and replay the events you participated in.

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Hint: You either had to be cute or smart to get the spotlight. Cute kids were given romantic roles in Shakespeare's plays and made Princes and princesses in Royal Plays. But if you happened not to meet these two criteria (cute and smart) then you most likely had to be a non-living item in a play or animal or just be there to make sound effects that fit the scenes.

You were guaranteed to get a villain role if you were troublesome as a kid. Troublesome kids were given roles like a traitor, a ghost, monsters, wild cats or witches. Sometimes these kids had to wear fruit and vegetable costumes or traffic lights and stationery costumes for awareness.

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If you are curious about how that worked, then Keep reading to find out!

Play that needs sound effects

Kids who were far from being smart and cute would be backstage miked up for the scene that requires sounds effects, starting from a fart, moving car, and thunder-to-gun sounds and shells falling on the floor. If lucky and happen to be almost smart and fluent, teachers could let you be the character instead and walk around the stage making pew pew pew or Pop-pop-pop for .22 and 9 mm pistols.

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That is all these not-so-smart kids will get to utter from their tiny mouths for the whole play. Usually, these were the kids who had very dedicated parents who would even come early to school functions.

You would hear the mom in very heavy makeup, long curling nails and a colour block outfit shouting from the crowd -and- blowing kisses: "that is my smart boy, making mama proud". I still wonder if the parents were excited by the acting skills or the potential in the kid to hold a gun properly.

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Bible stories play -Jesus's birth

All the cute and smart kids were given human roles- the cutest will be Mary mother of Jesus, and Joseph then the Angels. The smart ones would get roles that required a lot of speech and dominant characters.

The corrupted kids who would swap pencils, fiddle, or disrupt classes were given roles like Judas Iscariot, a Snake that deceived Eva, and the seductress Jezebel.

There was a guaranteed role for that hyperactive naughty kid to be stuck in a little devil costume in the background. So even if he runs around it would appear as part of the play since the little devil is supposed to be unpredictable.

Back then being shy and quiet was taken as being dumb so I was guaranteed to get a sheep or lamb character to bleat "baaa baaa baaa", in the background. Or a cow to "moo moo moo", in a stable where Mary was giving birth to Jesus.

If lucky I would be given a star costume to walk and lead the Magi to a stable where Mary was giving birth. I was that kid who was easy to replace because there is no need to practice the sheep or cow language "baaa baaa baaa" and "mooo mooo mooo". To even think I would go home excited to give my parents the invite to our fund-raising play, only for them to come to watch their bundle of joy turn into a little animal.

A Cinderella play.

For Cinderella's play, the cutest one will be given a Cinderella role and a fairy godmother. Then the two sisters would have to be less cute and not necessarily smart, some were made servants and guards in the palace.

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Sometimes the so-not-smart sisters would be given to those kids who just had their front teeth removed. The rest of us had to be furniture or balance the castle banner in the background. I was lucky sometimes to be either one of the horses that had to move the chariot to the palace with Cinderella in it or one of the six mice that were turned into carriage horses.

Snow White play

They would still use the same concept, cute kids were given Snow White role, stepmom, and the prince, and then others were given servants roles. Troublesome or not cute enough were given the seven dwarfs' roles. There was always a kid who would be perfect to be the stepmom which worked well when she had to lose all her beauty to look like an old witch at the end.

For Snow White at least the teachers didn't make me balance a mirror but I was made a castle. The whole castle costume meant one had to be stuck in that sponge throughout the play in the background. Sometimes I would dose off while stuck in that structure and only wake up when the play was finished because a castle didn't have to do much but sit on one position balanced by a wall.

I know teachers were biased in identifying the so-not-smart or not-cute enough kids😉😅, but looking at you through their lenses, what role were you given? or what role do you think you would have qualified for in kids' play?