'Tuna' royalty Williams to attend play opening

More than 30 years ago, three men put their collective funny bones together and wrote a Texas-based play that has woven itself into the fabric of the Lone Star State.

Fredericksburg Theater Company will open “Greater Tuna” on Friday, and the Texas-based comedy will run for two weeks.

Jaston Williams, who co-created “Greater Tuna,” will attend FTC’s opening night performance.

On Friday, the opening night gala begins at 6:30 p.m.

Artwork from Die Künstler von Fredericksburg will be in the lobby during the performances. A mural by Die Künstler president Donna Lafferty will be on stage as a backgdrop during the show.

Co-creator

Williams co-created the comedy along with Joe Sears and Ed Howard. Based in the fictitious town of Tuna, “Greater Tuna” is where “the Lions Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline lives forever.”

“Tuna” has spawned several sequels: “Tuna Christmas,” “Red, White and Tuna” and “Tuna Does Vegas.”

“Greater Tuna” includes characters such as Pearl Burras, R.R. Snavely, Didi Snavely, Petey Fisk, Vera Carp and The Reverend Spikes.

Three local actors will perform all the roles: Ryan Bailey, Daniel Melton and Ed Hitchler.

Following opening night, Williams will teach an improvisational acting workshop for young actors at 1 p.m. Saturday at the theater.

Registration and a $60 fee are required, since the workshop is limited in attendance.

Anyone interested should call the theater at 830-997-3588, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Recently, Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post publisher Ken Esten Cooke and reporter Richard Zowie interviewed Williams by phone.

How did you pick “Tuna” as the name for a rural Texas town?

It just came from the air. It literally came out of the air. I just said we could call it anything. We could call it Tuna. It stuck. Joe said that was perfect. We checked to make sure there wasn’t a Tuna, Texas. I noticed recently there used to be a town near the Cotulla area named Tuna. We made sure there wasn’t an incorporated town named Tuna before we went there. Texas has so many strange towns — Dime Box and Cut and Shoot and Turkey and Muleshoe. It seemed to make sense.

How do you think small-town life in Texas compares with small-town life in other southern states, or do you think it has its own uniqueness?

Our plays have been very well accepted in the south and southeast and in the Midwest also, and in some places in the west. You go to a little town in Arizona, and it’ll be absolutely as crazy as anything in Texas — they just have more venomous insects that can kill you. In the house, I might add.

My family and my gene pool was where the South met the West. My mother’s family was very southern and had come out of Virginia and Mississippi and God knows what the history was. My father’s family was westerners, cowboys. They were always right on the edge of where the West began.

My family has a real mixture of southern sensibilities and cowboys who can really break the china. It was a hybrid. Joe’s family was the same thing. His father was a rancher and they had a real cowboy element in the family along with Deep South too. He grew up in northeast Oklahoma, not far from Arkansas and Missouri. We did have similar backgrounds. Small towns everywhere are what they are. Lake Wobegon, in Wisconsin — they’re as crazy as we are, they’re just quieter about it.

Are the Tuna characters based on people the three of you have known?

Loosely. Some of them. There was an original Aunt Pearl. Joe was always telling stories about his Aunt Pearl. She is probably the closest to anything based on a real person.

A lot of Vera Carp’s characteristics came from my mother, although my mother is not conservative at all and Vera’s a very rabid conservative.

Didi Snavely, I got her voice from a far west Texas woman who smoked a pack of Raleighs a day. God, she hated the idea of a filter on a cigarette.

Some of the characters are manifestations of ourselves. Certain sides of our own personalities. There’s a little bit of that in all of them. It was quite a mix laughs. I was just in West Texas a few days ago at a high school reunion. It was absolutely delightful and funny, funny, funny.

Of the 11 characters you play, which one is your favorite to perform?

You know, it kind of depends on my mood. I really love Didi Snavely just because she doesn’t take any guff. I like Vera and I like them all. I like Petey Fisk, because he has such a great heart. I really like Arles Struvie because he has all that cowboy stuff my Dad had, although my Dad wasn’t a drinker and Arles is. If Dad had been a drinker, he would’ve been a lot like Arles.

I don’t have a character that I don’t enjoy playing. There are certain times when we’d go out in costume and do press all over the country. People would say, “We want Pearl and Vera to go out.” We’d say, “They’ll go out, but they’ll fight since they don’t like each other.” We dragged them…when they did press, they’d open supermarkets.

What’s the biggest challenge of playing all those people? Costume changes?

Initially, it was the costume changes, but you get used to that. And the costume change backstage, for it to work, you have to treat it like something normal and stay very, very calm. If you panic, you’re dead. That can be difficult. We also were very specific where we put characters in the script.

Writing it was probably the hardest part and making the cuts necessary. Sometimes you’d write something and think, “That’s the best thing I’ve written in my life,” and it would never get a laugh. You’d wonder what was going on. You’d have to learn to let something go. We got a laughs out of it, but nobody else did. That laugh was apparently just for us.

Do all the colloquialisms translate? (i.e. “No sense of humor, like a turnip.”)

Yeah. I always knew when to cut a line. If you’d do a line over and over again and never get a laugh and then one night get one person to laugh, you’d think, “Oh, God. That makes two of us who think that’s funny.” You learn to let it go. That’s important as a writer. What you take out is absolutely significant as what you leave in.

Greater Tuna has been performed across America, off-Broadway, in front of President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush, and overseas. To what do you attribute the show’s success?

I really don’t know. I think people appreciated that we have affection for the characters we played. Even though our plays were quite satiric and were really taking a very specific political point of view, they were done with a kind heart and people could tell we loved these characters and we knew them and played them accurately.

We weren’t talking down, we were not making fun. Sometimes I’ve seen productions where they were making fun of them, and it doesn’t work. You have to have respect for these people, even if you totally disagree with their motives, you have to have respect for them. That was important. I think that’s why it played. We played for the first Bush White House on several occasions. They were very gracious with us.

At the same time, Joe and I both were extremely close friends with former Texas Gov. Ann Richards. We were all over the place and yet everybody appreciated that we loved the characters and knew them. We were a little afraid of them, too.

There are currently four Tuna shows, including the 2008 “Tuna Does Vegas.” Is it possible there could be a fifth installation?

I would seriously doubt that. I can’t imagine it. We talked about it at one point, and we’re heading towards retirement. Joe is in Oklahoma and has his retirement home there and is settling in. We’re not in as good shape as we once were.

When we started this, we were 30 years old. It’s a lot of work. I think we’ve written enough. Joe and I might get together sometime in the future, but you have health and all sorts of other issues you have to take into consideration.

It’s important to know when to stop and let other people do it.

How often do you attend performances of Tuna shows? And what’s like to watch others on stage doing that?

Sometimes it’s wonderful, and sometimes it’s very surreal. When you’ve done the lines thousands of times and then you hear them again, you go, “Oh, my.” Sometimes I love it and sometimes it’s like a bizarre dream. I’m always thrilled when people do it.

I have great relationships with the folks in Fredericksburg. It’s a good group of people there. I’ve had a real good time there and I’m real excited about them doing it.

I don’t attend performances of “Tuna” very often. When you’ve done it thousands of times, you always think, “There is something else I could do tonight.” When I heard they were doing it in Fredericksburg, I jumped at the chance to come. I’m really looking forward to doing the acting class the next day. I’ll be here for Tuna Christmas too, I think so. I may do another acting class. I’ll be coming to Fredericksburg quite a bit.

We played Fredericksburg before. Bob (Straus) brought us to the great Fredericksburg High School, where we performed “Tuna.”

I have real good friends who live in Mason, and I get up there any chance I can get. I know Fredericksburg well. I like it.

When we performed here, Larry Randolph was on tour with me. Joe wasn’t there.

Cooke: My family and I grew up watching the old “Greater Tuna” 1984 HBO special. Are y’all ever doing to do anything with that? It’s hilarious.

It’s complicated. [The rights] ended up in Sony’s hands for a while, and then Sony claimed they didn’t own it. We knew they did. It was just nuts. Hopefully someday we can reproduce it, but it’s not something we’re focusing on at the moment. There’s too much else going on in our lives. There was a bar in Louisiana that played it once a week for about 10 years. It was a wonderful experience.

‘GREATER TUNA’

• Steve W. Shepherd Theater at 1668 U.S. 87 South.

• Aug. 14-23, Friday through Sunday. Friday and Saturday performances will be at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.

• Opening-night seats are $35. Regular admission is $29 for adults and $12 for children 17 and under.

• Purchase tickets at www.fredericksburgtheater.org or by calling 830-997-3588.

Die Künstler

A local art group will display their work in the lobby of the Steve W. Shepherd Theater during the Fredericksburg Theater Company's production of the comedy “Greater Tuna.”

Proceeds from the Die Künstler showing will benefit FTC, Die Künstler and the members.

The exhibit will coincide with performances of “Greater Tuna,” running weekends August 14-23. Times will be 6:30-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, then Sunday 1-4 p.m.

Some of the local artists that will have work on display are Donna Lafferty, Ron Vantz, Barbara Loyd, Dalton Fromme, Annette Bennett, Paulette Alsworth, Edyth O’Neil, Nancy Skoog, Sallie Carter, Brenda Hild, Rhonda Bayless, Louise Murphy, Ann Baltzar and Kathy Weigand.

The works will be a collection of still life, landscapes and portraits depicting a Texas theme.

“We are excited to have this opportunity to work with the Fredericksburg Theater Company,” said Die Künstler President Donna Lafferty.

“This is something that FTC has been planning for some time now,” said FTC executive director Steve Reily. “Our goal at FTC is to reach out to area artist and musicians. Our space is a great venue allowing us the opportunity to work with art organizations, such as Die Künstler. Together we can reach an even larger audience.”

Reily added that such events would soon be a permanent fixture at FTC.

Die Künstler’s annual membership show and sale will be Nov. 13-15 at Zion Lutheran Church.