Maggie Lawson and Liberty Welch are best friends. They're roommates and they're both pursuing theatre education-performance majors at the University of Central Oklahoma. This fall, the two were particularly excited to direct a play together, as their student production for UCO's theatre department. The play was called Boy My Greatness by Zoe Senese-Grossberg, a historical drama about the young boys who played women in Shakespeare's Globe.
"I read the whole play my freshman year on a bus ride to a character competition that we were competing in, and I just fell in love with it," says Welch, who is a junior now. Though the play takes place in the 1600s, she felt a kinship to the characters. "As a queer person, I have those feelings also, and it's hard for me to imagine not having the words to place my feelings. And so, for a play to be able to do that without having any [LGBTQ] labels whatsoever is so interesting."
Welch and Lawson pitched the play to UCO, got approval from the theatre department, and it all seemed like smooth sailing. But then, last week on September 2, three weeks before the play was supposed to be presented, Welch was told that Boy My Greatness was being cancelled.
"The head of our theatre department [Daisy Nystul] pulled me out of class Tuesday at 11 AM and was like, 'Hey, you can't do the play. It got up to legal or somebody, some higher power, and they said absolutely not,'" she recalls. "[Nystul] cited the State Bill 796, and didn't give me any other information." University leadership has not communicated with Lawson or Welch.
Welch was confused about why their show, which "doesn't use any LGBTQ language" was considered in violation of the law. In accordance with the playwright's wishes, they had cast the show across the gender spectrum, with cis male students, cis female students, and nonbinary students sharing the stage.
Explains Welch: "We kind of inferred—because we went and read the bill, obviously, and then we're like, 'Of course, it's because of the gender-blind casting. There's nothing else in this show that that bill comments on. But [the drama department] didn't really give us a reason. They didn't really tell us who said no. They just said, 'You can't produce it here, sorry. You have two options: You can either pick a new play with only three weeks of rehearsal, or you can self produce.'"
The bill in question, Senate Bill 796, was signed into Oklahoma state law in May. It prohibits universities from using state funds to "support or require certain activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion." The bill defines DEI programs as any that "grant preferential treatment based on one person’s particular race, color, ethnicity, or national origin over another’s." But because the bill is so broadly worded, it opens up any public university in the state to litigation if their programming is seen as promoting DEI. This places the UCO theatre department in a bit of a bind; on its website, the theatre department describes itself as being "renowned for its innovative blend of classical, contemporary, and socially conscious theatre."
In a press statement, a spokesperson for UCO said: “After a review of the requirements outlined in the contract from the national production company with legal counsel, the university’s theatre department decided not to support the local production of the show with university resources at this time.” The spokesperson also said the school reviewed both "federal and state laws.”
Playbill reached out to UCO's theatre department head Daisy Nystul for a comment. The email was forwarded to the school's General Counsel Kendall Parrish, who told Playbill that the school had concerns about Boy My Greatness being in compliance with Title IX (which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance). Nystul then added that the school had contacted the playwright Zoe Senese-Grossberg with a new contract for her to sign, saying, "If those issues can be resolved, it is my understanding that the students will have an option to perform the play at UCO." Nystul did not respond to Playbill's follow-up questions.
Senese-Grossberg told Playbill that UCO had indeed reached out to her with a contract granting permission for the school to produce the play. But the contract contained newly added provisions that would hold her liable in the event of a lawsuit, and it included "a clause about casting and gender (something that had not been addressed in the original contract)." On advice of the Dramatists Guild, Senese-Grossberg did not sign the document and has ceased communication with UCO.
"It concerns me about future productions of this play, if schools will use this as precedent to not produce it," says Senese-Grossberg, who herself is currently pursuing an MFA at University of Iowa. "It really does freak me out in regards to my work, which is often dealing with gender and sexuality. Laws seem to be built in such a broad way that anything can be censored should the people in power want to. When thinking about it in relation to this show, it feels not just a case of artistic censorship but part of a broader effort to keep trans people out of public life and to erase them from any historical narratives."
For the students involved in this ordeal, UCO's decision feels like a betrayal in a space where they had previously felt safe to express themselves as artists. Says Lawson: "I was in three shows last year, and in every single one of those shows, I played a queer character...So are we now not allowed to share the messages that we've been sharing this entire time? It's very scary."
Not giving up easily, Lawson and Welch decided to launch a GoFundMe, to see if they could raise enough money to put on Boy My Greatness on their own. Their initial goal was $2,000. After sharing their story on TikTok, the GoFundMe donations ballooned. The two have since closed the fundraiser, which received $9,837. The money enables them to rent a space at Upstage Theater in Edmond, Oklahoma, pay to license Boy My Greatness, and pay the student actors and crew working on the show. They also plan on donating a portion to local queer charities, such as the Youth Homeless Alliance. Boy My Greatness will now run October 23–26.
They have also talked about becoming an independent theatre organization; Lawson and Welch share a TikTok account called Maggie Liberty Theatre.
Though this section of the story has a happy ending, the artists who spoke for this story are clear that what's happening in Oklahoma is part a troublesome trend. Earlier this year, the Department of Education sent a letter to public universities saying their federal funding could be cut if they promote DEI, due to it being discriminatory towards white students. Under the Trump Administration, the National Endowment for the Arts has also begun requiring artists who apply for federally funded grants to affirm that they are not promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. It has also revoked grants that had been previously promised to theatres around the country. Trump has been clear about his intention to dismantle the NEA. Trump has also taken control of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., fired longtime staff members, and vowed to get rid of any programming he deems as "woke."
"I want to get the message out that this is just going to keep happening. We are not the first people it's happened to. We're not going to be the last," says Lawson. "And so, it's just really important to keep talking about it because, our show is going to go on, we got the money to do it. But not everyone is going to get that opportunity."
Anti-DEI laws also call into question typical theatre practices—such as female students playing male roles when there are not enough male actors, or doing any show that promotes perspectives from BIPOC or queer voices.
Says Welch: "What is theatre if it's not diversity, equity, inclusion? What stories are we supposed to tell? The whole point of us sharing stories is to learn about new things that maybe you didn't understand before. And so I'm like, 'What plays do you want us to do? Because every play I've ever read has some form of diversity, equity, and inclusion.'" Welch also notes that the theatre department has not given them guidelines on which shows are now considered safe to produce. Though she finds it interesting that the other planned UCO show, The Bible: The Complete Word of God Abridged, is still scheduled to go on.
"Me and Maggie both come from pretty conservative families. One of my uncles, who is an alt-right conservative, called me and was like, 'Hey, I don't support anything that's in this play. But you as an American have a right to produce any kind of art that you want, and this is infringing on your freedom of speech,'" says Welch. "It feels like we're fighting fascism."
