Sedona News – The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present “Can I Say Yes to That Dress” live on stage at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Friday and Saturday, April 18 and 19.
“Can I Say Yes to That Dress” — an outrageous one-woman show written by and starring Sarah Shippobotham — is a presentation of the film festival’s new Sedona Professional Theatre Company.
Stuck in a wedding dress changing room, a middle-aged woman questions her life choices and what it really means to be a woman. This hilarious and touching one-person tour de force asks what happens if you feel like you don’t fit into the socially accepted norms of femininity and femaleness.
“There’s a lot of layers to this piece, rather like a fancy bridal gown,” says Shippobotham. “It’s about the character’s doubts whether a wedding dress, and as an extension of that, a married life, is the right choice for her, and what exactly makes a perfect partner. But it’s also about society’s expectations of what it means to be a ‘conventional’ woman in our rapidly changing modern world.”
Channeling herself through the character she has written as Sîan Jones, Shippobotham presents a master class of the one-actor show genre, with rhythms and a structure that lift the words from her script up to a compelling, memorable corpus on stage. (The Utah Review)
Not to be missed, “Can I Say Yes to That Dress?” is moving, entrancing, comical, and thought-provoking.
SARAH SHIPPOBOTHAM
Sarah Shippobotham is an actor, dialect coach, intimacy consultant, and Professor in Acting, and Dialects at the University of Utah. Sarah trained as an actor at The Welsh College of Music and Drama in Wales before gaining a Postgraduate Diploma in Voice Studies from Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Acting credits in Utah include: Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester in Henry VI parts 2 and 3; The Duchess of York in Richard III; Lychorida and The Bawd in Pericles; and The Abbess in The Comedy of Errors for The Utah Shakespeare Festival; Beth in Tribes for Salt Lake Acting Company; Mrs. Shears/Mrs. Gascoyne in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Free Newspaper Woman/Ensemble in King Charles III, Anne Putnam and Sarah Good in The Crucible for Pioneer Theatre Company; and The Syringa Tree, an award-winning one-woman show, playing 20 different characters. Dialect/Voice coaching credits include eighteen seasons with the Shaw Festival (Canada), over 30 productions for the Pioneer Theatre Company, and shows for Salt Lake Acting Company. Shippobotham spent seven months in New Zealand working as a Dialect Coach on The Hobbit films.
“Can I Say Yes to That Dress” is generously sponsored by Renee and Doug Leuthold and Chuck Marr.
“Can I Say Yes to That Dress” will take the stage at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Friday, April 18 at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday, April 19 at 4:00 p.m. Tickets are $30 in advance or $35 at the door.
For tickets and more information, please call 928-282-1177. Both the theatre and film festival office are located at 2030 W. Hwy. 89A, in West Sedona. For more information, visit: www.SedonaFilmFestival.org.