https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/oklahoma-student-play-about-shakespearean>Oklahoma college administrators reportedly shut down a historically accurate student play about the boy actors performing as Shakespeare’s leading ladies over concerns about anti-trans laws—so students raised nearly $10,000 to bring the show to life.>Oklahoma Central University approved a student-led fall production of Boy My Greatness by Zoe Senese-Grossberg. “As the plague and rising religious conservatism threaten their way of life, they are all forced to reconsider their futures on the stage,” the show’s blurb read ahead of its world debut. “[It’s a] play about growing up, gender, and a chapter of theater history we seek to forget.”>Evidently, the school deemed this a liability. In order to avoid even the potential threat of a lawsuit, they revoked funding and permissions for the production, which had been pitched by two 20-year-old juniors at UCO’s theatre program, Liberty Welch and Maggie Lawson. They told Erin in the Morning they received school approval for the show this past spring.>“After spending lots of months working on this piece, and pouring our hearts and soul into it,” co-director Lawson said in a now-viral Tiktok, “we were informed that due to Senate Bill 796—which took effect on July 1st in Oklahoma—our university is at risk of being sued.”>SB 796 bans public universities in Oklahoma from utilizing “state funds, property, or resources” to “support diversity, equity, and inclusion positions, departments, activities, procedures, or programs.”>The duo said school officials gave students two choices: do another show approved by the university legal team, or self-produce the event, which would require them to raise thousands of dollars, find a venue, construct a set, and secure the rights to the script before the October premiere.
>>41007865this is fun and all but what, you gonna pretend like lefties are ok with doing Othello in blackface as you traditionally did?
