The Lions Club is too liberal, one resident declares. A junior high school student's prize winning essay is "Human Rights, Why Bother?" And the Smut Snatchers of the New Order demand that "Romeo and Juliet" be taken off the library bookshelves because it shows sex among teenagers.
Welcome to Greater Tuna, the wacky, eccentric third-smallest town in Texas. You can spend some time with the good folk of Tuna when the Woodinville Repertory Theatre performs the show in March.
Performances are Friday and Saturday evenings and Sundayafternoons from March 8 to 30 at Denali Slab & Tile Studio, 16120 Woodinville-Redmond Road, suite 12, in Woodinville.
Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday matinees are at 2 p.m.
Tickets may be purchased online at http://www.woodinvillerep.org/tickets/. You can get to the tickets page via the theatre's Facebook page. Prices are $18
online, $20 at the door. Seniors and students qualify for $15 seats.
"Greater Tuna" has charmed, outraged and delighted audiences since the early 1970s when authors Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard opened the show in Austin, Texas.
"Greater Tuna" has played all over the country. It's been made into an HBO special. When George H.W. Bush was president, he and his wife Barbara had the show performed at the White House along with a Tuna sequel: "A Tuna Christmas." There are two more: "Red White & Tuna" and "Tuna Does Vegas."
The trio has great fun with the strange things that can turn up in small towns everywhere: worries about homeless ducks, radio ads by Didi's Used Weapons, Jody Bumiller's heartbreak at never making the high school cheerleading team and what the late Judge Roscoe Buckner was wearing when his body was found.
It lampoons bigotry, small mindedness and people who fear words that can corrupt. Words like: ball, coke, hooker, clap, deflower and nuts. It also appreciates that Tuna-ites stick together. They go to the church socials, the football games and look after one another.
What makes the show especially fun is that the cast consists of two men who play 20 different parts, male and female. Our cast are local actors Chazz Kaskes and Andrew Carr.
Chazz has appeared in two Woodinville Rep shows: "The Odd Couple" (female version) in 2009 and "An Evening with Christopher Durang" in 2010.
Andrew played Sheriff John Curtiss in the theatre's 2012 production of "Southern Hospitality."
Artistic Director Hjalmer Anderson is the show's director. Among other Woodinville Rep shows Hjalmer has directed are Neil Simon's"Prisoner of Second Avenue" and "Southern Hospitality."
"Greater Tuna" is the second show of the Woodinville Repertory Theatre's 2013 season. In January, the theatre presented "Bold Grace: The Voyages of the Pirate O'Malley."
In June, we produce Sam Bobrick's "Passengers," a comedy of a day at a Midwestern bus station.
In October, look forward to "Wally's Cafe," by Bobrick and Ron Clark. Wally has just bought a cafe on the highway from Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Only the cafe is on the wrong side of the road.
The Woodinville Repertory Theatre is a professional theatre company founded in 1998 by the late Peg Phillips, a member of the cast of television's "Northern Exposure" series. The company is dedicated to producing quality theater that appeal to audiences across the Puget Sound region.
Got a question, write: WRT@woodinvillerep.org.
Phone (voice-mail only) 425-527-6889.
