Dixie Longate takes mechanical bull by the horns in new show

Dixie has traded her Tupperware for a mechanical bull — at least for this show.

Dixie Longate, that tireless champion of all things Tupperware who has channeled her passion for plastic food containers into the wildly popular one-person show Dixie’s Tupperware Party will be setting aside her bowls, cake takers and deviled-egg holders when she premieres her new show, (take a deep breath) Dixie’s Never Wear a Tube Top While Riding a Mechanical Bull (And 16 Other Things I Learned While I Was Drinking Last Thursday), on Wednesday at McDavid Studio.

But, do not fear. Dixie has not given up her favorite direct-marketed products.

“I could never give up Tupperware. The plastic is in my blood,” says the bouffanted Dixie, explaining that she will now alternate this new show with the old one. “I love learnin’ people about food storage.”

“Dixie” is actually actor Kris Andersson, who will be making his third visit to McDavid in the past three years. The first run was so successful that Dixie held forth for more than three weeks at the venue earlier this year.

But when you interview the very real Andersson, you talk to the (thankfully) very fictional Dixie.

“My best friend has a honky-tonk. And one day we started drinking. You know how it is when you are drinking, we get smarter,” says Dixie, explaining the genesis of Mechanical Bull. “So this show is made up of all the ideas that I have come up with when I am drinking that can make the world better and make people happier.

“I want to give people ideas about how they can change themselves to be a little bit better. I want to make this world a more well-oiled machine.”

And few people know more about well-oiled machines than Dixie. She has elevated the over-consumption of adult beverages to an art form, and it has given her the courage to face down even the most fearsome of robotic bovines.

“Everything I learned in life, I learned while riding a mechanical bull,” she says.

Well, not everything.

“It is so hard to ride on a Jet Ski while you are eating ice cream. That’s something I learned the hard way,” she says.

So now Dixie is ready to share that and other bits of her Jack Daniel’s-inspired wisdom with the help of props that include a mechanical bull and honky-tonk decor, such as mounted animal heads. But be warned that not all of the insights shared in this “for mature audiences” show are likely to be completely clear to any sober members of the audience.

Take, for example, these words, which have never been sewn on a sampler: “You can take the girl out of the trailer, but you can’t have sex twice without moving the camcorder.”

And another note of caution: Do not look to Dixie to help you with parenting skills.

“I’m out [on the road] about 40 weeks a year. I think it makes my kids kind of sad. But I don’t want my kids around anyway. So I leave ’em tethered to the front door of the trailer sometimes,” says Dixie, a proud resident of Mobile, Ala. “But then I go back and the kids are always still there. And I’m like, ‘Can’t you get a job?’ ”

But she does let one of her younger children help her transform into the resplendent redhead we see on stage. Like Dixie’s audience, her larger-than-life hairdo takes a lot of teasing.

“It takes no time at all [to create her signature look],” she says. “My little one, my 3-year-old, Absorbine Jr., is so sweet. He shakes a little bit. I think it is because I was drinking when I had him.

“But, when he’s shaking, what I have learned how to do is to hand him a little teasing comb and bow down. It makes him feel like he is accomplishing something.”

Dixie’s beauty tips are as gold-plated as all the other guides to living that will be imparted in Mechanical Bull — a show that Dixie presented in Denver last year in what she describes as a test run, saving the world premiere of this new comedy for Fort Worth — a city she has come to love.

“It’s like coming home,” she says, “but without the stinky kids.”

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Dixie Longate takes mechanical bull by the horns in new show."