J. Rene Productions is proud to present the benefit performances of Jessica Martin’s TOMBOY, a play exploring the butch-femme role-playing of 1950’s Texas. On an otherwise quiet August night, Tommy and the women in her life gather at Gray's Bar. What starts as new-found butch Liz's tour of Brazoria's butch-femme scene becomes at once something more as Emma and Maddie, Tommy's lovers, try to protect Tommy from the times they live in.

Hailing from Texas herself, Jessica Martin understands the struggles of being both a lesbian and a playwright in a small, conservative town. When asked how being a gay woman in Texas inspired her writing of TOMBOY, she stated: “Living in the part of Texas that I was in was not the most hospitable locale for being gay. I knew a number of people who were brave enough to be out and always under some form of physical threat; and to me at that time (not even ten years ago); this was the way it was. When I began writing about the 1950’s, and doing research on that time in lesbian history, 1980’s Texas didn’t seem that far a step from the time and place my characters are in.”

TOMBOY has been selected to take part in this year’s New York International Fringe Festival, a production of The Present Company, and Boston performances are to raise funds for the cast and crew to participate in the festival later this August. The play stars Kimberly Crowe, K. De Anne Dubin, Lyralen Kaye and Kristen Walters, directed by Elisabeth Woodcock.