QUEER NEUTRALITY: THE EFFECTS OF POSITIVE, NEGATIVE, AND HUMAN REPRESENTATION OF QUEER WOMEN IN MEDIA AND THEATRE

Abstract

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup is an original play written by Taylor Maxim, performed in the Purchase Performance Lab: A Festival of Senior Projects from November 16th-19th, 2022. After being denied a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin, a nurse arriving home from a late-night shift begins to spiral. At 5:30am her girlfriend must unpack how a breakfast sandwich could cause such a commotion. I directed this project, and wanted to focus on positive, complex, human representation of queer women. In these essays, I discuss my goals and reflections on the production and analyze a multitude of plays that represent positive and negative queer representation in theatre and discuss their effects on how society views the LGBTQ+ community.