Southern Hospitality
The star of Dixie's Tupperware Party sure can work it. You've never seen a sales pitch like this. by Amber Matheson
"I did my first party, I went in, and I met some people, talked about bowls for a little while," she says. "And then, I got free drinks. I'm like, Wait a minute, I can drink for free and this is called work? I loved it!"
According to Dixie (the creation of actor Kris Andersson), she left prison, three kids and a trailer in Mobile,
Ala., to head out and make her fame and fortune selling plastic bowls. "[My parole officer] suggested that I do something where I could control my own schedule and do something on my own terms," she says.
Dixie's carefree, let's-spike-the-punch-bowl attitude has had her riding high on Tupperware fumes for 10 years now, and she'll bring her one-woman show Dixie's Tupperware Party to PlayhouseSquare's 14th Street Theatre Sept. 29 through Oct. 31.
With her short skirts and propensity to drink, Dixie is a ready-made party in a homemade tablecloth dress. She's a little over-the-top, but like all good Southern girls, her heart is even bigger than her hair. As she shared with us, Dixie's rules to live by are actually pretty simple: Have a drink, have some fun, and please, for the sake of the kids, buy some damn Tupperware!
- I did a party for 20 people when I first started. If you have to be in front of that many people, without a pole that I could swing around and use, it's hard. • But it's really sort of shown me that you can have a dream and then make it happen.
- I make it like a Tupperware party, so that there's a chance to get up on stage. Games, prizes and raffles, and people get up and play along. We might sing a song or two. • I want to be sure it's interactive and fun.
- Hell, nobody wants to sit there staring at me for a half hour talking about plastic bowls.
- I'm a Southern girl. I never grew up with much. My dress that I wear in the show, I made it myself from my own Fourth of July tablecloth.
- My oldest, she's 16, she has a job at the Hooters. She does so well. She helps keep a lid on things at the trailer.
- Everybody knows with Tupperware if you push down on the center and pull up on the seal it will burp out. I call it passing wind cause it just sounds nicer.
- People say, "I've had my Tupperware for 30 years." • Try to find a product around right now that lasts that long.
- It's a damn bowl. We know what it does. You put crap in it.
- I get to be at a party every night, having a good time, and then, makin' people smile, it's just the icing on the cherry on the top of the sundae on top of the gravy.
