On Monday, Baylor alumnus and previous entertainment editor of the Baylor Lariat, Del Shores, released his most recent play, movie and TV series “A Very Sordid Wedding.”
Shores is an award-winning writer and director of “Blues For Willadean,” “Southern Baptist Sissies,” “Queer as Folk,” and “Sordid Lives.” “A Very Sordid Wedding” is the sequel to Shores’ series “Sordid Lives.”
“Not a day [went] by where someone didn’t write me asking me for more ‘Sordid Lives,’ I wanted to contrast affirming churches and organizations like Faith In America with the hypocritical bigotry that is still being spewed,” said the writer, director and producer, Del Shores.
“A Very Sordid Wedding” brings back characters from the prequel, “Sordid Lives.” Shot in Winters, Texas, just a few weeks after the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage, citizens of the city are not ready to accept the ruling. “A Very Sordid Wedding” premiered on March 10 in Palm Springs, Calif. at Camelot Theaters, where “Sordid Lives” showed for 96 weeks. “A Very Sordid Wedding” began showing at the Waco Hippodrome Theatre on Monday.
“The film received the highest per-screen box office gross, a stellar $40,000, of any specialty film in the country,” said public relations associate Brian Geldin. “‘A Very Sordid Wedding’ is now making its way in limited release via The Film Collaborative in Waco, Austin and Dallas.”
“A Very Sordid Wedding” makes its way through Texas while the Texas Legislature battles over Senate Bill 6, also known as the bathroom bill Geldin said. The bathroom bill is promoted as keeping bathrooms women and men, rather than allowing transgender people the right to choose.
The 32-person cast consists of Bonnie Bedelia from “Parenthood,” Caroline Rhea from Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Leslie Jordan from “Will and Grace,” Carole Cook from “Sixteen Candles” and Alec Mapa from “Ugly Betty.”
The Hollywood Reporter said “A Very Sordid Wedding” “offers some undeniably entertaining moments and its talented ensemble, clearly encouraged to pull out all the stops, and delivers their comic shtick with admirable gusto.”
“Sordid Lives” dealt with coming out in a conservative and southern environment, while “A Very Sordid Wedding” explores the questions that occur during the acceptance and rejection of gay marriage in conservative families. Shores uses comedy to approach the heavy topics and shows a “very real process of acceptance,” Geldin said.
