Simon’s participation in the school musical, Oliver!, is a motif throughout the novel. Rehearsals for the musical are the impetus for bringing Simon together regularly with characters like Abby, Martin, Cal, and Taylor, as well as the backdrop for many scenes. While characters like Nick, Bram, and Garrett are associated with their participation on the soccer team, Simon identifies himself as one of the drama kids. He chooses to sit with them at the homecoming football game, for instance. While rehearsing the musical is hard work, it is a playful, fun-loving, supportive community. This group identity is a powerful safety net for Simon, as when he is feeling vulnerable as the victim of anti-gay bullying, and members of the theater community (Abby, Taylor, and Ms. Albright) stand up for him. When the cast is performing the musical at school, Simon also enjoys wearing his stage make-up at lunch, not only because he likes how it looks, but because “it’s just kind of awesome to be marked as part of the ensemble” (217).

The theater has symbolic layers in the narrative as well. Being in the closet is a performance Simon is forced to do, a presentation of the external that hides his internal life.