Greater Tuna at Hatbox Theatre

The comic play Greater Tuna opens at Hatbox Theatre on October 23rd and runs through November 8th. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm, and Sundays at 2:00pm. Tickets are $22 for adults, $19 for members, seniors, and students and $12 for senior members. Tickets may be reserved by calling 603-715-2315 or purchased online at www.hatboxnh.com.First produced in 1981, Greater Tuna, written by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard, has been produced thousands of times all around the country with Sears and Williams performing. Its creators have toured the play extensively and it led to a filmed production by Norman Lear for HBO. Since that time, the Tuna universe has expanded to three more plays revisiting the lives of the characters from Greater Tuna and expanding the world to other characters, seasons and locales (can you say Vegas?).In this two-act comic play, two actors, Andrew Pinard and Eric Stanley, take on twenty roles - men, women, and even small animals - and along the way introduce audiences to the wacky citizens of Tuna, Texas. The play opens with the morning broadcast from radio station OKKK (275 watts) and its two broadcasters, Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie. In the first few reports, we get a sense of Tunas community, its priorities, and the larger than life inhabitants of the third smallest town in Texas.Greater Tuna is a celebration of small-town life, full of contradictions and conflicts that confront us with our own struggles. While definitely a comedy, many significant issues are portrayed: racial inequities, cultural ignorance, neighbor relations, and the challenges of parenting. Irreverence is the rule of the day, and outrageous characters reflect very real issues in a very, very funny way.

Authors

• Ed Howard
• Jaston Williams
• Joe Sears