Funny that the Deseret News reviewer gave it the most positivie review, while the Tribune and Salt Lake Magazine reviewers were lukewarm about it.

'Sister Dixon' heartwarming, poignant
By Erica Hansen
Deseret News
Published: Friday, May 8, 2009 3:49 p.m. MDT
"THE PASSION OF SISTER DOTTIE S. DIXON," Pygmalion Theatre Company, Rose Wagner Center, through May 17 (801-355-2787); running time: 2 hours 10 minutes (one intermission)

In a country embroiled in a political debate over same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, Miss California and Marie Osmond, it might be easy to forget the people at the heart of this polarizing issue.
Enter Sister Dottie S. Dixon (Charles Lynn Frost).
The Pygmalion Theatre Company show — "The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon" — has been so popular the company added three performances to the close-to-sold-out run.
Sister Dixon is not here to preach, and she's certainly not here to judge. She is here to share the story of her personal journey and spread a message of love and inclusion — "bridging the gap between gays and Mormons, one creative casserole at a time."
Dixon was created when KRCL's Troy Williams asked Frost to create funny characters for his radio show.
Frost, who is best known for originating the role of Alex McCormick in Plan-B Theatre Company's "Facing East," chose a character based on his mother — a good Mormon woman living in Spanish Fork, Utah.
Frost comes onstage in a puffed-up wig, capris and various sweater-sets and tells the tale of her family history — her 37-year marriage to Don Dixon; the birth of her son, Donnie; the moment Donnie told her he is gay; and her struggle to understand and rectify the gap between a church she loves and the son she loves.
With Dottie's best friend, Sister Dartsey FoxMoreland (Kent Frogley) at the piano, and a series of stairs as the set (Brad Henrie, design), Sister Dixon entertains for close to 90 minutes.
Beginning with her family "treeneology," she then teaches a lesson on how to speak Spanish — of the Fork variety — "Ferude," "Frignernt" and "ta, da, sa" in place of "to, do and so." The crowd, made up of many of Dixon's fan base, laughed appreciatively at all the local-isms, especially at a clip of Dixon on Doug Fabrizio's show.
The pacing moves along pretty well, but it does slow down a bit when Dixon finds herself at the annual Burning Man Festival in Nevada, where she ends up hallucinating (aided nicely by Pilar I's lighting) about a giant boxelder bug telling her about her new mission.
What works best and is most endearing about this play is that it is personal. Even though the evening is filled with comedy — and lots of it (thought never mean-spirited) — what is most appealing about "The Passion" is watching this very likeable, warm and loving woman's very real struggle.
And Frost's delivery couldn't be better.
Sensitivity rating: Veiled references to drug use; smoking; mild swearing; and sex discussion on Dottie's wedding night.


In 'Dottie,' casseroles leave us wanting more
Review » Radio personality's Mormon housewife finds her stage -- but doesn't have enough to do.
By Ellen Fagg Weist
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 05/09/2009 08:53:17 PM MDT

It's not that Charles Lynn Frost's character of Sister Dottie S. Dixon, a small-town Mormon housewife, isn't funny.
She is, thanks to her regular word mangling ("apostrasizing" for "apostasizing" for example) and colorful descriptions, such as calling the explorers of Spanish Fork the "Catholic Judas Priests." And then there's her "heavy regional accent," which she teaches theatergoers with Power Point slides that detail the "sa," "ta" and "fer" prepositions of Spanish. Spanish Fork, that is.
But in Pygmalion Production's "The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon," which transforms Frost's popular KRCL radio character into a Broadway stage play (it may only be "Third South in Salt Lake City but it's still Broadway," Sister Dottie says), this drag character rarely plows enough fresh ground to harvest, well, theater.
The eyelash-slim plot reveals what happens after the 10th-generation Mormon learns her only son, Donnie Jr., is gay. When her RV stalls in the Nevada desert on a road trip, Sister Dottie stumbles into the Burning Man Festival, and what she imbibes in the mushroom tent sparks a vision. Her calling, she realizes, is to bring together the Mormons and the gays, one casserole at a time.
As you'd expect, Frost and co-writer Troy Williams offer jokes about tuna casseroles and Relief Society feuds over the number of potato chips that should be crunched over funeral potatoes. The gags have all the former Mormons in the audience laughing out loud to accompanist Dartsey FoxMoreland's (Kent Frogley) quirky renditions of Primary songs and other LDS standards.
Frost's Sister Dottie wears a blonde helmet-shaped hairdo, peacock-colored eyeshadow behind cat-eye glasses, and perfectly color-coordinated aqua and brown outfits. Her character's vivid expressions might remind you of somebody you know. Somebody like Dana Carvey's "Saturday Night Live" Church Lady character, circa the 1980s, minus those pursed-in-judgment lips.
It's funny enough, as far as it goes, but the Mormon material still strikes a condescending tone: Think "Saturday Voyeur" lite without the big production numbers. The creators spend more time skewering small-town Utah life, circa the 1960s and 70s, rather than saying anything new about contemporary cultural clashes. And they waste their time slogging through Sister Dottie's excommunication from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, rather than depicting her journey back into the fold.
That's a shame because Sister Dottie, who already has a following through her KRCL radio show, offers her freshest material when she falls into naive activism. Where the script really has something to say is in its media segments, such as a video scene where she's interviewed by KUED/KUER host Doug Fabrizio, who plays his own in-on-the-joke self.
What would set the work apart is if the narrative were aimed to really earn its visionary ending, when Sister Dottie becomes a cover girl for the LDS Church's Ensign magazine. There's nothing this city needs more than a character who employs not just tuna casseroles but our own locally flavored mix of sweetness and irony to tell a story that could really bring together the gays and the Mormons. And everybody else, too.
Tickets » $20, available at 801-355-2787 or www.arttix.org.

Salt Lake Magazine
Theater review: The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon
By Dan Nailen
05/01/09 - 10:54 AM

If you need any proof that the medium is a vital component in delivering a message, go no further than the new Pygmalion Theatre Company production, The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon.
As a KRCL radio regular with her own show, the Dottie character is funny and topical. But when Dottie creator Charles Lynn Frost and co-writer Troy Williams took her to the stage for this 95-minute one-woman live show, they somehow lost their way, and ended up with a show that relies too much on the same old Utah cliches for its jokes, to the detriment of the show's more poignant moments.
For the uninitiated, the good Sister was created by Frost three years ago as a character capable of infusing current events with some charm and humor. She's a 50-something Mormon housewife from Spanish Fork who happens to have a gay son—a circumstance that obviously gives her plenty of ammunition for topical chatter, especially in the post Prop. 8 era.
Don't get me wrong; there are laughs in The Passion. Frost's performance as Sister Dottie is worth watching in person for any long-time fans of the radio show, which airs Friday afternoons on KRCL. And he gets a few good one-liners off, like introducing himself to the audience by saying, "You know me as an advocate of the minoritized and miniaturized peoples of the world." Or when Dottie claims she needs to remember that "the Lord sometimes sends angels dressed as homeless people."
Too often, though, the Sister spends time in The Passion walking already traveled comedic ground, such as a set piece when she gives the audience a lesson in "Spanish," meaning the uniquely Utahn accent prevalent in Spanish Fork. Yes, it's kind of quirky that Utahns say "upta" when they mean north, or "overta" when they mean anywhere out of town, but we've heard these jokes for decades from radio DJs and the folks who write Saturday's Voyeur. It's not that it's not funny; it's just stale for anyone who's lived in Utah for any length of time.
Maybe that's part of my problem with connecting with The Passion as I watched last night. I'm not a native Utahn, I'm not Mormon and I'm not gay, and perhaps anyone who falls in one of those categories will find it more worthwhile than I did. But I've lived in Utah long enough—23 years off and on—to be bored with the stereotypes of Utah language quirks, or Mormon cooking.
Much better were the touching moments, such as when Dottie recreates the conversation she had with her son when he came out to her as a teenager. It was an impressive bit of acting from Frost, and a truly poignant moment that made the audience empathize with the parent—in this case, a highly religious parent—struggling to understand a difficult situation. A few more of those moments might have changed my whole opinion of The Passion.