Before you see the play, Grace, it might help to know that the play doesn’t tell Grace’s story
from the start to the finish in the exact order that things take place. It jumps around a little
bit in time, so sometimes we will see a scene from when Grace was a very young girl, and
then we might also have a flashback from her more recent past.
We won’t want this to be confusing, we have written a summary of what happens in the
play. The actors will also narrate the play, so it shouldn’t be hard to follow the story.
When you go to the theatre, you’ll meet the actors playing Grace and her mum and her dad.
Spoiler alert – you’ll find out pretty quickly that Grace’s dad is a ghost. So, what happened
to them, and why do Grace and her family want to share the story with you?
Let’s find out:
Grace is an only child, which means she has no brothers or sisters. When Grace was born
and grew into a toddler, she didn’t start speaking in the way that many other children do.
Grace didn’t use words, but she found lots of other ways to communicate. Things like
movement and sounds. Grace’s dad was able to understand Grace very well, even though
she didn’t speak with words, but it was harder for Grace’s mum. This meant that, even
though Grace’s parents both loved her very much, Grace was always closer to her dad than
her mum.
Grace’s favourite thing to do was always hanging out in her dad’s shed. It’s a cool shed that
he built himself, and he always had different projects that he was doing in there. They
would sit in there for hours, drinking hot chocolate, with Grace watching and helping with
all kinds of projects.
Grace got a little bit bigger and went to a school, where teachers would try to teach her
things. This was okay, but Grace didn’t always like learning the way the teachers told her to.
It didn’t always make sense to her because Grace liked to explore the world in her own way.
She made friends at school, but some of her friends weren’t always very nice to her.
Grace took a bus to her school, but the bus engine was very noisy and Grace didn’t like it.
She thought it was scary. One day, when Grace was ten years old, she just couldn’t get on
the bus anymore. When he understood that she really didn’t like going on the bus, Grace’s
dad decided he would drive her to school every day, and he did.
This is the sad bit. One day, when Grace was about thirteen years old, Grace’s dad drove to
the shops. He came back with nearly everything on the list, but he had forgotten to get eggs,
and her mum sent him back for them. On his way back home with the eggs, Grace’s dad was
in a crash with a bus and he died.
Grace and her mum were really sad after Grace’s dad died. We see this in the play. Grace
was angry too and she didn’t know what to do with all these big emotions. It was hard for
Grace and her mum to communicate with each other and so they grew further apart.
After Grace’s dad died, she didn’t want to go into his shed anymore because it made her
sad. One day, Grace went into the garden and found a baby sparrow that had fallen from
the nest. The sparrow’s parents were nowhere to be seen, and Grace knew she had to
rescue the sparrow. She couldn’t bring it into the house because her mum was terrified of
birds! So, Grace had to take the little sparrow into the shed. When she went into the shed,
she got a big surprise… Grace’s dad’s ghost was in the shed! He was a friendly ghost, of
course, exactly like he was in real life.
Grace wanted to take care of the sparrow and Grace’s dad wanted to help Grace and her
mum find a way to communicate and also for Grace to be able to communicate with other
people and get more independence. Grace discovered that her dad had made her a letter
board with all the letters of the alphabet on it. Over the next few weeks, while the sparrow
was getting bigger and stronger, Grace learned to communicate her thoughts and feelings
by spelling out words and sentences on the letter board.
After many weeks, it was time for the sparrow to fly away from the shed, and it was time for
Grace to talk to her mum. Grace brought her mum to the shed. Using the letter board, she
was able to say that she didn’t blame her mum for what happened to her dad. Grace’s mum
was amazed that Grace had found a way to talk to her. They started to understand each
other better. At the end of the story, Grace let the sparrow go, and Grace’s dad’s ghost
knew it was time for him to leave too. Grace and her mum were going to be okay!
