Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons

Plays

“The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon” to Be Staged in Salt Lake City
May 1-17, 2009, at the Rose Wagner Theatre

March 2009

A gay-friendly show that promises to include references to the GLBT community, Proposition 8, and Utah’s predominant religion, The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon will soon be staged in Salt Lake City. The writers, Troy Williams and Charles Frost, are two gay men, both of whom come from an LDS background. The director, Laurie Mecham, is well known to Affirmation members because of her impersonations of Sister Fonda AlaMode and Mrs. Cherry Jubilee.

Sister Dottie is none other than Frost, best known in the GLBT community for the dramatic role he played as a Mormon father who loses his son to suicide, in Carolyn Pearson’s Facing East. “Dottie’s sort of a manifestation of my mother, who is no longer living, and some of her friends,” Frost told JoSelle Vanderhooft of QSaltLake. “I channel her frequently [when performing as Sister Dottie].”

“I see The Passion very much as activism,” Williams wrote in his blog. “On one level, it’s a response to the ongoing battle between Mormons and Gays. On another, it’s our intention to transcend polemics and actually move the audience into a different space... Can we explore conflict through humor and joy? Can we include the old narratives while transcending into something new? That’s the goal.”

The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon premieres in Salt Lake City, May 1-17, 2009 at the Rose Wagner Theatre. Tickets available by calling 1-801-355-ARTS.