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I was fifteen years old the first time I watched the film version of Sordid Lives, and I have been in love with it ever since.

There is something Del Shores does that very few writers can pull off: he makes you laugh until your sides hurt and then quietly breaks your heart — sometimes in the same moment. Sordid Lives is not just a wildly funny piece of theatre, but an honest, unflinching look at a Southern family and community in all their complexity. The flaws, the warmth, the contradictions, and the humor that gets people through the hardest of days.

Del has spoken openly about Sordid Lives being his "coming out play" in many ways. It's a story drawn from lived experience, written with both love and criticism for the South, and without any desire to sanitize it. Del presents each of these characters from within their own inner world and belief systems, and that is precisely what makes them so human. One of the most beautiful things this play asks us to consider is that people do not have to be perfect — or even right — for us to love them. And it reminds us that even the most narrow of viewpoints can crack open when a person is faced with a hard truth. 

You will hear some language in this show that may make you uncomfortable. When those moments come, I ask you to sit with them and consider why Del included them. Consider what he is asking you to feel and to examine. 

This play is for anyone who has ever felt like they didn't quite fit. For anyone who has had to learn how to love who they are in the face of hate or bias. For anyone who has loved someone complicated, or been someone complicated. That is all of us, if we're honest.

Get ready to laugh! This show is genuinely fun and we want you to let go and enjoy every ridiculous moment. But also be ready to lay down your walls, and step into this sordid world with an open mind and an open heart.

Bringing this production to life here, with my hometown theatre company, is a full circle moment I will carry with me for a long time. I am so glad you're here with us.

Andi Morrow