Local actors, Tracy Parks and Chaz Weathers, recreate the production “Greater Tuna” that ran for more than 30 years around the world.
The popularity of the “Greater Tuna” show at The Palm Cabaret and Bar in Puerto Vallarta has resulted in extending the performances through January 20, 2015. Tickets are available at The Palm Cabaret or through VallartaTickets.Com.
Tracy and Chaz has audiences in stiches as they portray 20 men, women, children and animals from the third-smallest town in Texas where the Lions Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies. Welcome to Tuna, Texas.
Greater Tuna is the first in a series of 4 comedic plays (followed by A Tuna Christmas, Red, White and Tuna and Tuna Does Vegas), each set in the fictional town of Tuna, Texas, the “third-smallest” town in the state. The series was written by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard. The plays are at once an affectionate comment on small-town, Southern life and attitudes but also a withering satire of same. Of the four plays, Greater Tuna is the darkest in tone.
The plays are notable in that two men play the entire cast, in Puerto Vallarta the parts are played by Tracy and Chaz, of over twenty eccentric characters of both genders and various ages. Greater Tuna debuted in Austin, Texas, in the fall of 1981, and had its off-Broadway premiere in 1982. St. Vincent Summer Theatre produced the play in 2000, and No Name Players produced it in 2002.
Charles H. Duggan produced national tours of “Greater Tuna”, “A Tuna Christmas” and “Red, White & Tuna” for twenty-six years. Williams and Sears regularly tour the country to perform all four plays, with Howard directing.
Sears and Williams did command performances of both Greater Tuna and A Tuna Christmas at the White House for President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush.
According to the play’s official web site, by 1985, Greater Tuna was the most-produced play in the United States.
Source of play history – Wiki
