“There’s a version of me in being cast as Laurey where I sort of have to pretend I am that ingenue we’re all picturing [when we think of Oklahoma!]; pretending like I’m Shirley Jones or something, you know? That’s the version I would’ve grown up with in my head; it’s like if one day I’ll play [Laurey], in my brain I’m sort of playing a blond white woman. But in our version, I feel like I am welcome to the table in the skin I am in.” -Rebecca Naomi Jones

“I’m so excited to play [sexually adventurous Ado Annie] and to address sexuality and disability, without having to talk about it, but just be it, and that is totally on brand with our version of this show.” -Ali Stroker

“The women, particularly in our production, come off stronger than the men. The women make their decisions, and the women choose what they want. They’re not forced into anything so i think that our production shines the light on that.” -Mary Testa

For the 75th anniversary production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, she loves her and he loves him!

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma! was revived by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with LGBT+ Casting. “This revival made the musical’s primary romantic couple, Laurey and Curly, lesbians. It made the comic sidekick couple, Will Parker and Ado Annie, gay men (with “Annie” renamed “Andy”). It’s not just the two romantic couples in the show who have been reimagined. Laurey’s starchy yet sometimes playful Aunt Eller will be a transgender woman (portrayed by a transgender female performer). Ali Hakim will be a bisexual man who has a great fling with Ado Andy, but winds up married to a young bi woman named Gertie Cummings (who also fell in love with Curly). The director, Bill Rauch, felt Jud needed to stay a troubled straight man who, with no changes to the book, is angry that Laurey prefers a woman instead of him. “We wanted also to make sure that the world was not just LGBTQ-inclusive, but that it was clear that this was a community that was thriving, because there are straight allies. They are choosing in this small rural corner of Oklahoma to make a community that is inclusive and that is loving.””

Major changes to a show must be approved by the copyright holder. "Ted Chapin protects the catalog of Rodgers and Hammerstein with great ferocity, and at the same time, he understands the way great classics remain relevant is through thoughtful expansion and reinvention and experiment. So, I was really, really honored — not only to get the permission in general, but the fact that this is the 75th anniversary of ‘Oklahoma!‘ 

The story of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning Oklahoma! centers around Laurey and Curly, who are in love but are too stubborn to admit it to one another. A troubled farmhand, Jud, will do everything in his power to make Laurey fall in love with him instead. "I think this casting really excels in the love song ‘People Will Say We’re In Love,’ a beautiful love song that Laurey and Curly share, but their fear that people will say we’re in love takes on a completely different resonance and a completely different depth when it’s sung by two women, and the courage that it takes for these two people then, you know, finally when they sing, ‘Let people say we’re in love.’ The audience just cries and cheers, because it’s an affirmation in a completely different way.

female theater critics talking about Jud in the Oklahoma! revival :

This trial, the whole world, it’s all… show business.