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Written by Lee Roy Kunz
The Quarterback
The story of American identity and what it means to be a man.
A young football star, born intersex, must come to terms with who he is in Appalachia America.
An epic family drama set in God’s country USA; QB explores American identity, forgiveness, and personal acceptance.
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Friday Night Lights meets Boy's Don't Cry
Synopsis
QB is set in Appalachian America where a working-class man and his wife, Albert and Louise Pickett, experience the birth of their intersex child. The parents raise the child as a girl named May, but social conditioning is overpowered by biology: May insists that "she" is a boy. After an embarrassing rebellion, Albert and Louise send May to live with Isabelle in Ohio. Isabelle and her new husband, Coach Koontz, raise the child as a boy named Mayson. Mayson develops into a dominant football player under the guidance of Coach Koontz. In addition to being the top-rated quarterback in the state, jealousy from his brother and father further complicate the pressures of high school life and what it means to be a man without a fully developed penis. Mayson's secret is discovered during freshman hazing, and his father leaks the story to the press. What ensues is a media storm over the high school state football championship: Mayson leading one team, his brother the other.
the setting
QB sets its world in the most American of all sports, Football…
In a region of the country struggling with its own identity, in a biting geopolitical and economic landscape.
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This is a new America.
A part of the country whose deep values feel under attack.
A people that feel forgotten.
intersex | ˈin(t)ərˌseks |
adjective
relating to or denoting a person or animal that has both male and female sex organs or other sexual characteristics: an intersex child | she identifies as intersex.
the Characters
Mayson is the ultimate rebel. Born as an intersex child with a penis that was mistaken for a clitoris at birth, Mayson was raised as a girl named “May”. At the age of eight under intense physical and emotional abuse from his family, May feels the external need to conform. Mayson knows in his heart he is a boy, and he creates his own gender identity in direct opposition to all the pressures society and his family place on him. The James Dean and Marlon Brandon of his time, Mayson always listens to his heart, never giving into peer pressure, always doing what he thinks is right. Born with a courageous heart and a deep compassion for others, particularly those being bullied and oppressed, Mayson truly embodies both the male and female spirit. A natural athlete with a mind for football, Mayson eventually becomes one of the greatest high school quarterbacks of all time, creating tension with the countless souls that fail to understand him. He is the ultimate American rebel.
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Grandma Isabelle is Mayson’s maternal grandmother and the embodiment of unconditional love and compassion. She is the janitor at Golden Ridge High School in Ohio, just across the border from Kentucky. She offers to let Mayson come live with her and her husband, Coach Koontz, when her daughter Louise and Louise’s husband Albert no longer want to care for Mayson. She and Coach Koontz provide a home for Mayson where Mayson feels loved and accepted for who he is. She never criticizes Mayson for a second and accepts him immediately. She helps Mayson find his voice again after a traumatic experience leaves him mute. Of all his family, Mayson loves her the most.
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Coach Koontz is the coach of a mixed-race high school football team, The Golden Ridge Tigers. The team has a long winning streak and a history of excellence, in a town that takes their Friday Night games as serious as their Sunday morning sermons. Although Coach is deeply conservative he has a kind and gentle soul; he accepts Mayson immediately for the boy Mayson says he is. He takes to Mayson very quickly, seeing his enormous athletic potential, and begins molding him into a world-class Quarterback at a very young age.
Maggie is Mayson’s childhood friend. She often covered for Mayson when he would go to her house and dress up in boy clothes for school. Mayson and Maggie reunite as teenagers and begin a romantic relationship when Maggie makes it clear she doesn’t have an issue with Mayson being intersex. A musician with a rebellious nature of her own, Maggie finds a rare kind of love with Mayson where they support each other and grow together through all their hardshipsips.
Albert is Mayson’s overtly masculine, alpha male father. An ex-athlete and football star, he is all “man” and isn’t shy about throwing his weight around. He makes it clear from day one that it is not acceptable for Mayson to identify as a boy, and should behave as a girl. Even after Mayson’s birth, Albert wanted to cut off Mayson’s penis right then and there, to “nip" the problem in the bud. He didn’t want to face the reality that he was the father of an intersex child or as he calls it, a “freak”.
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Louise is part of a small-town conservative household. She’s not the one making the big decisions and is easily manipulated by her husband Albert. She just wants things to be easy and to fit in their assigned place, and she would constantly fight with Mayson over him not wanting to wear dresses and acting too masculine (Is that too much to ask?!). She is a tragic figure in our story. By nature, she has a big heart that is crushed by her fear of change and her loyalty to her husband. She is Truly pained when she has to hand over her youngest child, Mayson, to her mother Isabelle, in an act of personal identity suicide. Like many of the characters who must change, accept change, or suffer the spiritual and emotional consequences, Louise refuses to do so and clings to her notions of how things should be. Of all our characters, she suffers the most deeply for it.
Niki is the only openly transgender student at Golden Ridge High School, who Mayson quickly befriends after several of his Tiger teammates berate her for her sexuality and refuse to let her use the girls' bathroom. Niki has big dreams to move to New York City and work in fashion, as either a model or fashion designer. She has the looks and the natural beauty that could easily pass as a female. She is brutally beaten and murdered by a group of young men, one of which she slept with when they find out she was born a boy.
Mongo is the starting center and team captain of The Golden Ridge Tigers, and a main antagonist, at first. He fights bitterly with Mayson and dislikes him for his cocky arrogant nature. The main bully at the school, he is the one that instigates the other boys to not allow Niki to use the girls' restroom; however, he eventually comes to accept both Niki and Mayson for who they are. Although he doesn’t completely understand them, he nonetheless becomes an ally of Mayson, supporting him and helping him to victory in the state championship game against Eldon.
THE TIGER FOOTBALL TEAM
The Golden Ridge football team is a mixed-race group of high school football players. Half white half-black raised on Christianity but from different social classes. They are a microcosm of America, representing both The Red and The Blue. They are the old and the new. A minority on the rise in a town that is much more politically and racially diverse than the small conservative town of Kentucky where Mayson was born.
The End...
Worlds Fair Pictures
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