Holm is a fiction and nonfiction writer and editor. In this essay, Holm looks at how Henley treats the theme of appearance in this play.

The Miss Firecracker Contest is a play about appearances. Appearances, literal and figurative, drive the lives and the motivations of these characters. Appearances make or break these people. The effects of appearances in these characters' pasts continue to haunt them and direct their choices and thoughts. It is no doubt intentional that the title of the play, and the event that the title refers to, is a beauty and talent contest. Even more interesting is the fact that this could easily have been a play about one main character's struggle with her own appearance. But in this play Henley gives her reader lots to think about. Even the secondary characters in this play change as a result of the Miss Firecracker contest...