“Southern Baptist Sissies,” the acclaimed stage play written by award-winning out writer and director Del Shores (“Sordid Lives,” “Queer As Folk”), is hitting the big screen in selected cities, including Philadelphia, where it will get a March 13 screening.
Funded through a crowd-sourcing campaign with Indiegogo, “Southern Baptist Sissies” is a hybrid of a live-stage experience on film telling the sometimes-comedic and other times heart-wrenching story of four boys growing up gay in the Southern Baptist Church and their individual struggles to reconcile their sexuality with the church’s antigay teachings.
Shores said he didn’t originally plan for the film to be a recreation of the live-stage experience but he is happy with how it came out.
“Originally, the story was always what I wanted to continue to tell,” he said. “The original conception was to be able to adapt into a film. The finances just fell apart. It was just one of those projects that eluded me. It continued to be the one that I would get letters from people who had seen the play. Those letters touched me the deepest and I was consumed with how to get the movie made. The goal was not to preserve the theatrical experience but I’m so glad I did. It turned out so nice and so wonderful. The story is still compelling. I utilized all three mediums that I work in successfully. We were able to stage this as a play and film it with these amazing actors. The first time I saw a rough cut of it I thought, This is going to work. The one goal I had was to honor the theater but I wanted the audience to sometimes forget that they were watching a play. I felt like the actors’ performances, especially in the intimate scenes, were able to accomplish that.”
The film stars original play cast members including Emmy winner and out actor Leslie Jordan (“Will & Grace” and “American Horror Story: Coven”) as Peanut. Shores said that Jordan, a longtime friend and collaborator, was inspirational to the character of Peanut.
“We’ve known each other since the 1980s,” Shores said. “We’ve been working together since 1985. We adore each other. We tell each other our secrets. When I wrote the role of Peanut, Leslie read it and said, ‘Well thanks for betraying every single story that I told you.’ And I asked him if he would do it and it he was OK with it. He said, ‘Of course I’ll do it. Who else can do it?’ And there have been many actors who have stepped into those trendy shoes and several of them have been wonderful in that role. Jim J. Bullock replaced Leslie for a while. But Leslie’s story about his time in that hustler bar, all of those stories he told me … so he was very influential.”
Shores said that given the global stage of LGBT rights and discrimination in the United States, as well as in places like Russia and Africa, the issues at the core of “Southern Baptist Sissies” are almost more relevant and urgent today than they were 14 years ago.
“The crazy thing of this is I wrote this in L.A. in 2000 and I always hoped that this would be a period piece,” he said. “I daresay that it is more timely now than it was when it came out. It may have been a little ahead of its time. I wrote about my experience and my pain in the church. I didn’t realize how many people shared that. I thought I was writing my story. Leslie Jordan said it well when he said that with the march toward marriage equality, we’re shining a light on all equality, not just nationwide but worldwide. And, with the religious right, sometimes they got a little quiet. The sermons were there but they were preaching at little more subtle. Now there is just out-and-out hatred. Compared to my preacher in ‘Sissies,’ it’s horrifying some of the things that are being said. These kids are taught to hate themselves. So many of my fans write me and talk about how they are damaged by the church and continue to be damaged like that. So I think it is more timely than it was.”
“Sissies”seeks to portray Southern characters without resorting to stereotypical archetypes.
Shores said he tries to walk the line between writing believable characters and capturing the eccentricities of the South.
“With the ‘Sordid’ characters, they were broader than the ‘Sissies’ characters but I always try to convince people to play them as real people and not cartoons. I think the magic of accomplishing that is in the writing and I’ve worked hard to tell the truth in my writing, but I always cast the right actors. This cast in ‘Southern Baptist Sissies’ is just stellar. We had to shoot this film in 10 days. We shot it before an audience for four shows in two days. Then we filmed it like a film so that we had it in the can without the audience. We used a lot of the live shows. You walk that line. My biggest complaint when I see other productions of my plays is that they go over the top. I always said that I try to approach the brim but I try not to spill over. I never just want to paint black-and-white pictures. I want colors to be in it. I want flaws to be in it. I want truth to be in it. My dad was a Baptist minister and he was a wonderful man and good dad to me. Unfortunately, he did preach like the pastor in ‘Sissies’ did. He was a good pastor. He cared about his people and we portrayed that in the movie. This pastor thinks he is doing right but the damage is monumental to these boys.”
Now that “Sissies” has been brought to the big screen, Shores said his next project is to work on the next chapters of “Sordid Lives,” which stalled as a TV series on Logo amid legal wrangling and issues over finances.
“Unfortunately, I don’t own the series and Logo doesn’t own the series so I can’t do a series,” Shores explained. “The great news is the film title has been returned to my company so I can do more films. I’m actively writing the next project we’re going to do, which is film two ‘Sordid Lives’ films to release over the next couple of years. We have ‘A Very Sordid Wedding’ and ‘A Very Sordid Christmas’ and I’m hoping to get most of the cast back. I would love to return to some kind of TV if the right project came along and I’ve got some things spiraling ahead but no more series for ‘Sordid Lives.’ That is just history.”
“Southern Baptist Sissies” is screened 8 p.m. March 13 at Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art,. 531 N. 12th St. For more information call 267-519-9651.