This past spring, Salt Lake City theater audiences met Sister Dottie S. Dixon, a happily married Mormon housewife from Spanish Fork who also happened to be the proud mother of a gay son. And it seems we just can’t get enough of her.
Fresh off of sweeping City Weekly’s Artys awards in the theater production, original play and performance categories, Pygmalion Theatre Company’s one-(wo)man show The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon returns for a production that’s not really a sequel, and slightly more than a revival. “It’s 90 percent the same,” said cocreator Troy Williams at the Artys reception, with the changes coming in areas “that were probably annoying only to me.”
But that still means another opportunity for theater-goers to experience Charles Frost’s remarkable performance as Sister Dottie, transcending simple drag-act clichés to turn our protagonist into something more complicated than a Utah-slang-spewing stereotype. Her journey of personal growth—as she butts up against her church’s hard-line teachings about homosexuality while attempting to support her Donnie—is both hilarious and surprisingly touching. It’s hard to imagine what the show could turn into now that Williams and Frost have had a chance to work out a few more kinks.
Fortunately, we don’t have to imagine it. If you missed it the first time around, come join the party. And even if you did see it last time, you’ll probably still enjoy your second helping.
The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon: Second Helpings @ Rose Wagner Center, 138 W. 300 South, 801-355-ARTS, Oct. 2 – 25. PygmalionTheatreCompany.org
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