Our show was banned. We're doing it anyway.

Hello! Our names are Maggie and Liberty, and we are Junior Theatre Education/Performance majors at the University of Central Oklahoma. In the spring semester of 2025, we were given an amazing opportunity in our department to pitch and co-direct any show of our choice. With this in mind, Maggie and I fell in love with Boy My Greatness, a play by Zoe Senese-Grossberg, originally produced at the Firebird Project-NYC. A play about Shakespearean boy players in the 1600s, a REAL part of history that we seem to try to forget. With this incredible play, a connection to the text, and being able to work with the original playwright, we were chosen by a board of peers and faculty to produce this show with the University of Central Oklahoma's student-allocated funds from our student organization, “The University of Central Oklahoma Theatre Society”. Unfortunately, after spending months of work on this piece, pouring our heart and soul into this story, and casting the show. On September 2, 2025, we were informed that, due to Senate Bill 796, which took effect on July 1, our university is at risk of being sued for hosting a show that includes gender-blind casting. With this in mind, our rights were stripped from us, and we were told we could not do the show. With this being said, we were given two choices: to either choose another show with the “approval” of our university's legal team, or produce the show ourselves with no connection to our school. We have chosen to self-produce this show because this story is now even more important to tell, with how we are being silenced by fear. This means we are buying everything out of our own pockets, our rights, our set, and even a venue, and that’s why you might be looking at this GoFundMe! Queer people exist everywhere, even in Oklahoma, believe it or not. Thank you!! - Maggie Lawson & Liberty Welch