Greater Tuna' on Tour in June

Fairmont State University's Town & Gown Summer Theatre will tour the two-character play "Greater Tuna" during June. Linda O'Connor directs her husband Dr. John O'Connor and Jason Young in the production.

The performances are scheduled for June 1-2 at 7:30 p.m. and June 3 at 2 p.m., Highgate Carriage House, Fairmont; June 8-9 at 7:30 p.m., Thomas Education Center, Thomas, W.Va.; June 15-16 at 7:30 p.m. and June 17 at 2 p.m., Fairmont State Gaston Caperton Center, Clarksburg. Tickets are available through the Box Office at (304) 367-4240.

"Greater Tuna," which began as a party skit based on a political cartoon was, by 1985, the most-produced play in the country. The comedy is really a series of sketches about Texas' third-smallest town: "where the Lion's Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies." The cast of two portrays all of the inhabitants of Greater Tuna, including men, women, children and animals.

The play's creators are Joe Sears, Jason Williams and Ed Howard. The early tours found Sears and Williams playing to packed houses all around the country and, for over a year, in Off-Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre.

In 1988, the show was presented at the Edinburgh Festival, again to great popular acclaim. When it returned home, "Greater Tuna" began a seven-year run at San Francisco's Marines Memorial Theatre. Twice, President and Mrs. George H. Walker Bush had command performances at the White House. Now, "Greater Tuna" is the first in a trilogy of "Tuna" plays. The others are "A Tuna Christmas" and "Red, White and Tuna." This last is currently touring nationally.