Emerson Collins

Southern Baptist Sissies

Producer/Lead Actor

Southern Baptist Sissies is a film of the theatrical experience of writer/director Del Shores’ GLAAD Award-winning play about four gay boys growing up in the Southern Baptist church.  It explores the conflict between the caustic rhetoric of dogmatic religion and the fragile development of adolescent homosexuality while challenging hypocrisy, exposing damage and offering hope.  The intimate experience of theatre on the film screen reveals the complicated emotions from all sides – the confused child, the struggling adolescent and the angry and damaged adult.

Emerson produced the film through his company Beard Collins Shores Productions.  The film was financed through crowdfunding on Indiegogo and shot in a theatre in West Hollywood in ten days, including four live performances.

The film opened at Outfest and played 28 film festivals, winning 15 Awards including 9 Audience Awards, two for Best Feature, Best Comedy, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Emerson won Best Lead Actor from the Red Dirt International Film Festival.

The film was released theatrically in independent theaters including five weeks in Palm Springs, two weeks in Los Angeles, and then Portland, Detroit, Raleigh, New Orleans, Ft. Lauderdale, Hollywood, Phoenix, Greensboro, Sedona and Dallas.

The film screens regularly as a benefit or fundraiser for churches, charity organizations and school groups with Q&As and talkbacks with Emerson and director Del Shores.  For a packet with information on hosting a screening with your organization, fill out the form on the contact page.