The Rebel Alliance Theater 2023 season was underwritten by a generous grant from the First Congregational Church in Oshkosh.

“If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.”  (Norma – Perfect Arrangement) 

 We would all like to believe this statement to be true. But, for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, it often is not. The artists of Rebel Alliance Theatre, aided by a generous grant from the First Congregational Church in Oshkosh, have devoted their 2023/2024 Season to amplifying LGBTQA+ voices and issues, shining a light on the ways in which queer people are affected by the fear and prejudice of those around them.  

The third show of the Rebel Season, Perfect Arrangement by Topher Payne, is set during the infamous “Lavender Scare”.  The story takes place in 1950, in an increasingly polarized United States at the outset of McCarthyism. With homosexuality considered a mental illness, gay men and lesbians were barred or removed from government employment over concerns of “deviance” and “general moral turpitude” . At the center of this upheaval, two gay men and two lesbians have found a way to avoid discovery by presenting themselves as heterosexual couples, living next door to each other. But when their employer, The U.S. State Department, asks them to target men and women just like themselves, they are forced to choose between the increasingly tenuous living arrangement required by their government and the right to live in dignity without shame or fear.