Two Plays at Cherry Lane Theater Show What It's Really Like to Be a Kid

Right now at Cherry Lane Theater in New York City, two short plays are running back-to-back on the same night. One is a funny, musical show called 'School Pictures,' written and performed by Milo Cramer. The other is a much darker play called 'Two Girls,' which deals with a troubling video. Together, they paint a powerful picture of what it is like to be young in America today.

A reporter who saw both shows in one evening said the experience was strange and eye-opening, like looking through a microscope and a telescope at the very same time. The two plays are very different in tone, but they share the same big question: What kinds of lessons do children really learn as they grow up? Watching them both together makes that question feel urgent and impossible to ignore.

'School Pictures' is the highlight of the evening. Cramer plays the ukulele and a toy piano while singing about students he worked with as a private tutor. The songs are deceptively simple, meaning they sound easy and playful, but they carry serious messages underneath. Cramer uses humor to pull audiences in before hitting them with something much harder to laugh off.

The show is built around ten portraits of real middle and high school students, though Cramer changed their names and some details to protect them. One student, named Leigh in the show, is terrified that her mother will be angry about a C- in science class. Another student, named Jason, is a 16-year-old who says hateful and extreme things, and Cramer admits he is a little afraid of him. These portraits show that even small moments in a young person's life can carry enormous weight.

Cramer is not just a performer — he is also deeply frustrated with the school system. He points out that he is helping students prepare for entrance exams that give wealthy kids even more advantages. He calls New York City's school system the 'largest, most complicated, and most inequitable school system in the country,' meaning it is deeply unfair to many students. He also notices an uncomfortable truth: as a tutor who sometimes works as a barista, he is largely invisible to the rich families who hire him.

'School Pictures' first appeared at a theater in Philadelphia in 2022, then moved to another New York stage in 2023, and now it has arrived at Cherry Lane. Even after three years, the show still feels fresh and urgent. Cramer's anger has not faded, and in some ways it has grown stronger, because the problems he sings about have not been fixed. As the reviewer noted, three years may not feel long to an adult, but for a child, it is an enormous amount of time for things to go wrong.