TUNA DOES VEGAS Begins 4/17 At La Mirada

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts and McCoy Rigby Entertainment are thrilled to present the fourth production of La Mirada Theatre's 2008-2009 season of shows, the Southern California Premiere of TUNA DOES VEGAS, written by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard and directed by Ed Howard. TUNA DOES VEGAS will begin performances on Friday, April 17 (with a press opening on Saturday, April 18) and will run through Sunday, May 3 at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Boulevard in La Mirada, near the intersection of Rosecrans Avenue.

Joe Sears and Jaston Williams return to La Mirada in their first new show in a decade! Polyester-clad Bertha Bumiller and gun-crazy Arles Struvie decide to head to Las Vegas to renew their wedding vows. But Arles announces the trip on his conservative radio talk show, and so nearly everyone in Tuna decides to head to Sin City as well. Petey Fisk from the Greater Tuna Humane Society goes on a mission to find out if the white jungle cats in Vegas are really albinos or just the victims of bad dye jobs, Inita and Helen from the Tastee Kreme take a spin as showgirls, Joe Bob goes on the Rush Limbaugh diet and Vera and PEarl Battle over the slot machines.

Find out what happens when an Elvis impersonator from the sequinEd White stretch-pants era gets double-booked with another Elvis impersonator from the "Blue Hawaii" period. Don't miss the fun of Tuna Does Vegas!

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

Joe Sears is co-author and co-star of Tuna Does Vegas, as well as co-author and co-star of the wildly successful Tuna Trilogy. Mr. Sears has been touring extensively with the Tuna Trilogy productions for the past 22 years. His sixth tour of A Tuna Christmas included his Broadway debut for which he received a 1995 Tony Award-nomination for Best Actor in a Play. The first record-breaking year included a command performance for President and Mrs. George Bush at the White House. Mr. Sears' Washington, D.C. engagement of A Tuna Christmas earned him his third nomination for the Helen Hayes Award for Best Actor. A Tuna Christmas was also nominated for Best Play. Mr. Sears also received nominations in 1984 and 1988 for the Helen Hayes Award for his performance in Greater Tuna. He originated these roles off-Broadway when Greater Tuna premiered in 1982 and has performed in the highly successful national tours and co-wrote and starred in the Embassy Television/ Norman Lear Special of Greater Tuna which aired on HBO. Mr. Sears has been acting professionally for the past 30 years. His credits include a season with Theatre Works USA in New York, summer stock, outdoor drama, television and eight Shakespeare plays. Among his many roles are Bottom and Thisby in two separate productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the Doctor in Three Sisters. He appeared with Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes) in The Foreigner. Later he would play Fannie's role and attributes his success to her. Mr. Sears has appeared on the David Letterman and Merv Griffin shows and received a Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award for his writing and performance of Greater Tuna. Mr. Sears received the 1993 Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award for Best Actor in A Tuna Christmas. He performed in the musical comedy The Fantasticks at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. and at Casa Mañana Theatre in Fort Worth. He made his movie debut with Tommy Lee Jones and Matt Damon in The Good Old Boys. Mr. Sears is the playwright for the Cherokee Nation's outdoor drama Trail of Tears, which runs during the summer months in Tahlequah, OK. Mr. Sears was awarded the L.A. Theatre Ovation Award for Best Actor 1999. He recently completed the Libretto (along with Mr. Williams) for the new Comic Opera Ochelata's Wedding, commissioned by the OK Mozart International Music Festival. He and Austin-Nashville songwriter Kimmie Rhodes are now working on a new musical entitled Doin' God's Chores, an Austin workshop production. Mr. Sears also owns and operates Cody Stage, a summer stock theatre company in Cody, WY.

Jaston Williams is co-author, co-star and producer of Tuna Does Vegas and is the co-author and co-star of the Tuna Trilogy. Mr. Williams has been creating the citizens of Tuna for the last 22 years. The performances have played on and off Broadway at the Kennedy Center, the Edinburgh International Arts Festival, the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. and all over America. He has received Washington D.C.'s Helen Hayes Award nominations for A Tuna Christmas and Red, White and Tuna as well as the San Francisco Bay Area Critics Award for Greater Tuna.

Mr. Williams received the L.A. Drama-Logue Award for both Greater Tuna and A Tuna Christmas. A Tuna Christmas was published in "Best Plays of 1995." For several years, Mr. Williams toured in Larry Shue's The Foreigner, for which he received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Best Actor. He performed in The Fantasticks at Washington D.C.'s Ford's Theatre and directed the musical Bad Girls Upset By The Truth at Atlanta's ALLIANCE THEATRE. Mr. Williams received the Texas Governor's Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts by a Native Texan and has performed at the White House on three occasions. In his hometown of Austin, Texas, Mr. Williams has appeared at the State Theatre in Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs and at Zachary Scott Theatre in Jay Presson Allen's Tru, for which he received the Austin Critics Table Award for Best Actor in a drama. He most recently appeared at Zachary Scott Theatre in The Laramie Project. His play, Romeo and Thorazine, work-shopped at Zachary Scott Theatre in November 2001. He work-shopped his autobiographical one-man show I'm Not Lying to critical acclaim at Austin's State Theatre of Texas and returned it there for a full production in April of 2004 as well as a benefit performance at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center. His latest autobiographical play Cowboy Noises premiered in Austin in April 2008 to critical acclaim.

Ed Howard (Co-Author/Director) is the co-author of the plays Greater Tuna; A Tuna Christmas; Red, White and Tuna; Tuna Does Vegas and Splendora. He is the author of All The Way From Magnolia Springs, a play based on Fannie Flagg's first novel Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man. He wrote the book and lyrics for the musical The Tempest Tossed. Off-Broadway he directed Great Tuna and Laughing Stock by Romulus Linney, which was selected as one of the ten best plays of 1984 by Time Magazine. He directed A Tuna Christmas on Broadway and directed the national tours of all the Tuna plays and All The Way From Magnolia Springs.

TUNA DOES VEGAS has assembled an award-winning design team. The set design is by Christopher McCollum. The lighting design is by David Nancarrow. The costume design is by Linda Fisher. The sound design is by Ken Huncovsky.

TUNA DOES VEGAS will begin performances on Friday, April 17 (with a press opening on Saturday, April 18) and runs for three weeks through Sunday, May 3. Performances will be 7:30pm on Tuesday through Thursdays; 8pm on Fridays; 2pm and 8pm on Saturdays; and 2pm and 7pm on Sundays. There will be no matinee performance on Saturday, Apri1 18 at 2pm and no evening performance on Sunday, April 19 at 7pm.

Tickets are $40 and $48 and can be purchased at La Mirada Theatre's website, www.lamiradatheatre.com. Student, Senior, Children and group discounts are available. For more information, call the La Mirada Theatre Box Office at (562) 944-9801 or (714) 994-6310.

LA MIRADA THEATRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, now in its fourth decade, has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the best Broadway-style houses in Southern California." This beautiful state-of-the-Art Theatre has been producing quality productions for its Southern California audiences since 1977. The theatre has produced several national tours and is the recipient of many accolades including Ovation and Emmy Awards and Tony Award nominations. Brian Kite is the theatre's Producing Artistic Director. The theatre is located at 14900 La Mirada Boulevard in La Mirada, near the intersection of Rosecrans Avenue. Parking is theatre-adjacent and free. For further information 562-944-9801or visit www.lamiradatheatre.com

McCoy Rigby Entertainment combines the talents of musical theatre star Cathy Rigby with Tom McCoy's extensive production and theatrical experience and has become one of the nation's premier theatrical production companies. Credits include Tony-nominated Broadway shows, long-running national tours, multiple-award-winning Los Angeles stage productions, and hit TV specials.

The number of major theatrical awards garnered by McCoy Rigby Entertainment includes 3 Ovation Awards, 25 Drama-Logue Awards, 3 Backstage Garland Awards and 3 Tony Award nominations, 20 Ovation nominations and 8 NAACP award nominations for the touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar. In addition, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences awarded McCoy Rigby Entertainment an Emmy for Best Scene Design as part of four nominations for the A&E network production of Peter Pan. www.mccoyrigby.com

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