Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: Florida - Southern

Dixie's Tupperware Party

Down South LLC presents Dixie Longate in Dixie's Tupperware Party as part of their Off-Broadway in Broward series. This creative theatrical event is a hybrid of a semi-interactive comedy act and a drag performance, turned into an actual Tupperware party. Indeed, the audience is seated at tables with Tupperware catalogues along with their show program. A colorful party hostess named Dixie (Kris Andersson in drag) puts her own spin on the products as she presents them to an audience of potential buyers. Most assuredly this is not your mother's Tupperware party of the kind begun in the 1950s, but then, times have changed. It is doubtful anyone could look at a Tupperware party in the same way after attending this hilariously bawdy soiree.

Dixie's Tupperware Party began as the brainchild of Los Angeles actor Kris Andersson, who used to supplement his stage work with in-home Tupperware parties. Then the notion struck him to combine the two, and his 90-minute send-up of the American way of merchandising was born. The show debuted in 2004 at the New York International Fringe Festival. For more information on the show, please go to www.dixiestupperwareparty.com.

Dixie energetically shares stories of her life with the audience, who are her Tupperware party guests. Bedecked with plastic jewelry and a red and white checked outfit, she is ripe with trailer-park charm. She speaks candidly of her three failed marriages and her struggles as a single mother of three: Winona, DeWayne and li'l Absorbine Jr.. She reveals her checkered past in prison, and that it was her parole officer who first got her involved in selling Tupperware, as she needed a job to get her kids back upon release from jail. No one in the audience is quite safe from Dixie's quick wit and double entendre (this is a PG-13 show), but you find yourself rather hoping you might be picked on as it is so much fun.

Dixie insists: "Everybody wants to meet a new friend or neighbor and have something to drink, right? And you can do all those things at the Tupperware party. I like to tell people to get out of their trailers, come have a cocktail and enjoy themselves. And maybe, just maybe, you're going to be so excited, you'll get some food storage items as well!" At the end of the show, audience members do actually have an opportunity to buy Tupperware from Dixie. Whether or not you buy/use Tupperware, this terribly clever show is just a great time.

This production of Dixie's Tupperware Party will be appearing April 7-18, 2010 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The Broward Center for the Performing Arts is located in the Riverwalk Arts & Entertainment District at 201 SW Fifth Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, FL.Presentations at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts are sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Support is also contributed by the Broward Performing Arts Foundation, Inc. The Riverwalk Arts & Entertainment Consortium is a cultural partnership between the Performing Arts Center Authority, Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale, Florida Grand Opera., Fort Lauderdale Historical Society and The Historic Stranahan House Museum. It is supported by the Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council and the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention Visitors Bureau. For tickets and/or information on the many diverse offering of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts you may contact them by phone at 954-462-0222 or online at www.browardcenter.org.

Cast:
Dixie Longate: Kris Andersson

Crew:
Director: Patrick Richwood
Lighting Design: Richard Winkler
Sound Design: Christopher K. Bond
Hair Design: David H. Lawrence


See the current theatre season schedule for southern Florida.

-- John Lariviere