About the Play:

Greater Tuna is a full-length dark comedy by Ed Howard, Joe Sears, and Jaston Williams. Meet the citizens who live and work in Texas' third smallest town, where the Lion's Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies. They say it's healthy to laugh at yourself… but it's really much more fun to laugh at others! Greater Tuna takes a magnifying glass to small town life.

Greater Tuna is hilarious send-up of rural America, which swims upstream with a torrent of un-political incorrectness. What do Arles Struvie, Thurston Wheelis, Aunt Pearl, Petey Fisk, Phinas Blye and Reverend Spikes have in common? They are all among the upstanding citizens of Tuna, the third smallest town in Texas. It's a place where books like Huckleberry Finn and Romeo and Juliet are too smutty for the library shelves and even the local Lions Club is considered too liberal. An eclectic band of 20 Tuna citizens – men, women, children and the pets they love – are portrayed by only two performers, making this savvy take on rural life (the good and not so good) even funnier and more insightful. At once an affectionate comment on small-town life and attitudes, it is also a withering satire of uptight and narrow-minded stereotypes. Greater Tuna will leave you with a smile on your face for some time to come!

Greater Tuna began as a simple party skit based on a political cartoon seen in an Austin, Texas newspaper circa 1980. Creators Joe Sears and Jaston Williams (the original actors), and Ed Howard were the imaginative authors that parlayed the sketch into a critically acclaimed production, which premiered in 1981 in Austin, Texas. It opened off-Broadway in 1982 at Circle in the Square Downtown, ran for over a year and went on to tour major theatres all over America. Performances at the Edinburgh Festival and the White House catapulted the play into the national spotlight, becoming one of the most produced plays in American theatre history.

Cast: 2 any gender (playing no less than 20 colorful characters; but individual producers may expand the cast size at their discretion)

What people say:

"Howlingly funny." — Variety

"The audience all but exploded the theatre with laughter." — New York Post

"Hilarious, a tribute to the art of acting." — Washington Post

"Sharp, satiric & funny." — The New Yorker

"A whale of a funny evening." — Houston Post

About the Playwright:

Ed Howard is an American writer and director, best known as the co-author and director of Greater Tuna, the first in a series of four beloved comedies based on the fictional town of the same name.

Joe Sears is an American writer and actor, best known as the co-author and star of Greater Tuna.

Jaston Williams is an American writer and actor, best known as the co-author and star of Greater Tuna.