American writer Harper Lee based her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, on this premise, and a play based on the novel will be staged here this week.

It will be the first time this play, an O- level text, has been staged in Singapore, and it is independently produced by local drama instructor Sharon Ang.

The 31-year-old, who self-funded the $123,000 production, says: 'To Kill A Mockingbird was a text I studied in school.

Its themes of prejudice, stereotypes and double standards also haunted me into adulthood as I watched and experienced what was going on around me.'

She adds that she recently went through a divorce and the experience spurred her to realise her dream of seeing this play on stage.

'I was divorced about a year back, and was plagued by rumours and whispers going around behind my back,' says Ang, who was married for six years and has a six-year-old daughter.

Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times' Life!