Del Shores and Jason Dottley add a new chapter to the remarkable Shores legacy

BY LES SPINDLE

Since the late 1980s, when writer-director-producer Del Shores emerged as a promising Angeleno playwright, premiering his sardonically funny, yet heartrending works at Theatre/Theater, he has become a Southern California cultural icon. His semi-autobiographical plays and films and his work as a television writer on such shows as Queer as Folk are beloved by the gay community, while also resonating strongly to diverse audiences. During the past few years, a new business/personal partnership has greatly enriched Shores' life and his work. In 2001, he met fledging actor Jason Dottley. They fell in love, and their bond grew into a committed spousal relationship as well as a fortuitous artistic collaboration.

Shores and Dottley, who is now president of Del Shores Productions, are anxiously anticipating the July 23 premiere of the weekly LOGO Channel series Sordid Lives, based on Shores' hit play and film of the same name. Dottley stars as the repressed gay actor Ty and Shores writes and directs. The stellar cast includes Rue McClanahan (The Golden Girls) in a newly created role, Leslie Jordan, Olivia Newton-John, Beth Grant, Caroline Rhea, Dale Dickey, Bonnie Bedelia, and several additional favorites from Shores' unofficial repertory company of actors. Shores and Dottley could now perhaps hold the title of first couple of West Hollywood, though Shores' work is rapidly growing into a nationwide phenomenon, with the series likely to accelerate that process. Frontiers recently met with the two men at their charming Laurel Canyon hillside home to talk about love, work, and the Southern-fried deliciousness of Shores' artistic accomplishments, and to view a sneak peek of some hilarious—and steamy—footage from the soon-debuting series.

Dottley, a mid-20s charmer who hails from Mississippi, unashamedly asserted that he came to L.A. to pursue his goal of becoming an idolized showbiz celebrity (“and to be on McDonald's cups, like Robert Downey, Jr.”). Yet Hollywood glitz and acting were unfathomable concepts in what he calls his “republican family of football royalty.” Nonetheless, he knew what he wanted since he was a kid, and simply couldn't wait to make it happen. He arrived here in 2000, “did nothing but party for about a year,” then took acting classes for awhile before hooking up with the Shores artistic family. He says the on-the-job training proved far more valuable than anything he learned in acting school. The cheeky kid from the South has grown up a great deal since he arrived from the hinterlands, and he now has the professional credentials to back that up.

Dottley loves to sing the praises of his celebrated spouse, while expressing great pride in the quick strides he has made in his own career ambitions. He can be self-effacingly modest and self-confident within the same sentence. He proudly pulled out and read part of a review I wrote of his portrayal of angst-ridden Ty during a 2006 Sordid Lives stage revival: “Dottley provides a superbly nuanced characterization.” He wants the world to know that repeating this role in the TV series isn't a result of marital nepotism, catty cynics be damned. “My motivation in getting the project made came from a producing standpoint—that's where my head was, and also from sort of a spousal-support place. To Del's credit, once I was cast, he also knows he lives with a bit of a diva, and I think he was hoping the attitude didn't arrive before the talent did.” With a chuckle, Shores said he was relieved that it didn't.

The duo first collaborated on a 2006 revival repertory of Shores' most popular plays, staged locally for almost a year, and then presented in a national tour. Dottley cut his teeth in producing when Shores’ longtime producer Sharyn Lane, developed pancreatic cancer and became unable to keep up with her duties as her condition worsened. Dottley stepped up to the plate to assume many of her duties, sans official credit, on Shores’ play The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife. Lane died in 2005, and the hard-driving Dottley officially became producer of the 2006 repertory series, learning the ropes as he went along.

Shores talked about the evolution of his and Jason's bond: “We had a mutual friend—Sonja Soriano—who set us up. We had met once before on a dance floor of a club with Sonja. I was with my ex-boyfriend then and Jason kept flirting with me, which felt really great, since I wasn't getting much attention from the ex those days. A few months later, after a terrible breakup, I asked Sonja about that cute guy Jason. She said they were best friends and set us up. I thought 'well, this will be a good Band-Aid while I'm healing.' And he's been healing me ever since. We met in late 2001, Jason asked me to marry him on my birthday, December 3, 2002, and we were married October 26, 2003. And soon, we get to do it legally!”

As the personal relationship deepened, their chemistry as artistic partners began to flourish as well. Said Shores: “Jason challenged me to continue the Sordid characters [from the play and film] by writing an online novel. I decided it should be a prequel and wrote 22 chapters, one per week and called it The Sordid Saga. I then was hired to write and produce Queer As Folk and stopped writing the chapters. When LOGO launched, Jason suggested that I take a series version of Sordid Lives to them based on the novel. He had witnessed the craziness with the film, how years later, it was still so loved and talked about. I had my then-agent set up a meeting with Dave Mace, Senior VP of Television Production and Development. Dave was a fan of the movie and I pitched him a prequel to the film and play. Three years later, after a lot of work from so many passionate people, the show is going on the air.”

Dottley stressed that one reason that Shores' transfers of his works to new forms and new mediums take time is because the works mean too much to Shores to give up artistic control. It's challenging, but necessary to find financial backers who allow Shores to carry out his vision as he sees fit. Shores' plays have dealt with painful and very personal aspects of his life, which give them their emotional resonance. This is constantly reaffirmed by audience members who let Shores know how much the plays have helped them deal with their own personal crises. Sordid Lives was written and performed during Shores' breakup with his wife and his long-suppressed acceptance of his gayness. In the heart-wrenching tragicomedy Southern Baptist Sissies, Shores confronted his repressive upbringing in the homophobic Bible Belt culture, the difficulties of his brother's lack of acceptance, and the conflict he worked through in loving his religion, but seeing the evil bigotry that some elements of the church inflict on other humans, in the name of God.

Shores' extended family of loyal performers have also found their troubled past depicted in the playwright's works. Revered actor-writer Leslie Jordan, winner of an Emmy (for Will & Grace), and countless local theater awards and other honors, reluctantly took the role of boy-chasing barfly Peanut in Southern Baptist Sissies after he read it and found it very, very familiar. Yet, Jordan has revealed to me in previous interviews that he found playing the role cathartic. In the Sordid series, he will again play the institutionalized drag queen, Brother Boy, which he mastered in both the stage and film versions. Comparing it to Desperate Housewives, he said “I believe it will do for LOGO what Married With Children did for the Fox network when it was starting out. It's brilliantly shot. It's beautiful—a tribute to Del Shores. He has taken those characters and you would not believe the plot twists.”

Shores said that the 12 episodes filmed for the first season were shot in a mind-boggling 36 days, due to the tight budgeting. He's hopeful that once LOGO sees the final cut, they will order a second season. Said Dottley: “Getting this series made took every bit of will that we had. There's no greater pride that I get every day in knowing we actually did it. You have to fight for things you want this bad in life.” Shores concurs: “I was at a point in my life where I had just finished Queer As Folk, which was a fantastic television experience. But it wasn't my show, and I was turning down opportunities to do mine. I thought to myself: 'I'm approaching 50 and it's time right now to have a series or I don't think it's going to happen.' I believe that after everything that happened, without the journey, there would be nothing to appreciate sitting here with you today. It would have been too easy. There's a sense of strong emotion I get when I see each step come forward, like sitting and watching the trailer.” And very soon, we'll all get to share the experience.