Most studies and articles focused on gender and performance center around the analytical interpretation of both amateur and professional projects.   Concerned with the exhibition of subversive and often sex-based themes, gender and queer theory form a genre performed primarily by adults for adults. However, a gaping hole has been left in its application; I suggest that children’s theatre and the technique of gender blind casting is an important early stage to consider in deconstructing standard norms of sex, gender, and desire.   Using a new system of visual diagrams based on Judith Butler’s theory of the heterosexual matrix, I explore the Karamu children’s theatre program in Cleveland, Ohio-circa 1917.  Karamu exemplifies the use of subversive gender and race practice with children decades before Civil Rights or post-Third Wave Feminism.  I also investigate the hegemonic influence on gender blind casting with children. This unintentional norm
commonly puts female-as-male subversion into accepted practice, but less commonly applies a male-as-female gendered performance unless it is in an attempt to utilize camp to portray the feminine as subordinate.