Ever wonder what goes on in the mind of a playwright?
Our Author Insights series features personal essays from playwrights, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the ideas and experiences that shaped their work.
Below, read “When Innocence Ends: Growing Up in the Dark”, where playwright Maggie Smith reflects on her play The Final Meeting of the Unnamed Children's Protection League of Adolescent Vigilantes. You can also download a free PDF that pairs the essay with short, classroom-ready activities for students.
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When Innocence Ends: Growing Up in the Dark
Maggie Smith
I was shocked to find out that the story of the Lincoln Park Vampire Hunters hadn’t been turned into a play. It was 2019 and I was on a ghost tour, learning more about the city I had just moved to a year prior for college. I was looking for something, anything to write about.
It was impossible to not think of the story theatrically, as something that demanded to be on a stage. I thought about the real-life children the story is based on, telling stories about dragons and swearing to find their missing neighbor. I thought about them enjoying themselves as the night dragged on, taking their job seriously but still viewing the world with a sense of wonder, all while Couch Tomb loomed over them. The image is haunting, seeing children play on a plot of land that is someone’s final resting place.
I began to wonder when that change took place. When were we the ones who were having secret meetings where we shouldn’t be while the adults in our lives looked on as they worried? When did we lose that innocence that made the entire world our playground? I chose these themes to explore deeper in the play, thinking about what could happen in a single night that would cause six children to all lose their innocence. What major changes could they face? How would they change?
The answer would be found by splitting the characters into groups of two to watch over their makeshift camp. We get to see what they hold most important in these scenes, Alice and Ida’s relationship and freedom, Elmer and Nellie’s desire to stay blissfully ignorant to what is going on around them, and Laura and Edgar’s wanting to feel as though they have a place in the group. The darkness of the world slowly begins to seep in throughout the course of the play, both in the content of the scenes and in the transitions. The longer we sit with these children, we see the danger that they’re unaware of, especially when the true reason for Frank Mayell’s disappearance is revealed. It’s then that their ages are pushed to the forefront of my mind— It’s not just two characters facing off with a dangerous man, it’s two children.
While all characters in the script have some type of innocence about them, despite what Alice might want you to believe, none symbolize it as strongly as Edgar. We want to see Edgar leave the tomb with this innocence still in-tact, enough so that there’s a sinking feeling when you watch him come out completely changed. Once he is out of his shocked state, he immediately chooses to fight, completely transforming from the desperate-to-please child to a boy ready to stand up for himself and his friends. It was his way of growing up. And at the end of it all, that’s what the play is about. Growing up, losing innocence, changing. Everyone has to do it, one way or another.
I began writing this play at age 19, back when I was doing my own growing up by living in a city around 430 miles away from my parents and siblings. I finished the first draft of the play in early March of 2020, when the whole world was about to do a lot more growing up. I’d like to think I had my own transformation, just like each of the Vampire Hunters did. When we’re kids, we want to grow up so quickly, thinking that adults have much more fun than kids. However, I can safely say that I miss the days where I had the bravery and freedom that these kids have, both the real-life Vampire Hungers and their fictional counterparts. But even though I miss being a kid, I still don’t think I would have pulled an all-nighter in a cemetery. I’m not that brave.