What do Arles Struvie, Thurston Wheelis, Aunt Pearl, Didi Snavely and Phineas Blye all have in common? They are all among the upstanding citizens of Tuna, Texas’s third smallest town, where the Lion’s Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies. Greater Tuna, the long-running Off Broadway hit, features two actors creating the entire population of this small Texas town in a “tour de farce” of quick-change artistry — doffing costumes and characters faster than a jack rabbit runs from a coyote.
Greater Tuna was written (and originally performed) by Jaston Williams and Joe Sears with Ed Howard. The hilarious send-up of small-town morals and mores will play on the SLO REP stage August 9-25, Wednesdays-Sundays at 7 pm and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets range in price from $20-$37 and are available at www.slorep.org or by calling (805) 786-2440.
ABOUT THE ACTORS
Audiences will remember actor Billy Breed from SLO REP’s The Producers, The 39 Steps and A Funny thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Locally, he is a favorite at The Great American Melodrama and PCPA- Pacific Conservatory Theatre. Other regional theaters include Oregon Cabaret Theatre, Theatre at the Center/Chicago, the Royal Palm Theatre and the Lexington Shakespeare Festival. Jeff Salsbury grew up in Arroyo Grande and has performed many times on the SLO REP stage, most recently as Father Flynn in Douvt: A Parable. He can often be seen onstage at The Great American Melodrama and was most recently seen in the Marian Theatre at PCPA-Pacific Conservatory Theatre as Monty in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. Other regional theatres in which he has performed include the Mountain Repertory Theatre and McLeod Summer Playhouse.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Suzy Newman received her MFA in Acting from the University of Alabama and worked regionally with several Shakespeare festivals before coming to the Central Coast. She spent many years at The Great American Melodrama as an actor, writer, director, and company manager. In recent years she has worked for PCPA— Pacific Conservatory Theatre (Louise in Always, Patsy Cline), Oregon Cabaret Theatre (Violet in 9 to 5: The Musical) and at SLO REP (Miss Hannigan in Annie, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, and Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit.) Directing credits at SLO REP include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Lost in Yonkers, The Nerd, Independence, The Foreigner, The Drowsy Chaperone, and Picasso at the Lapin Agile.
GREATER TUNA is sponsored by The Bostrom Family and by Cricket Handler and Jerry Boots. The Show Director Sponsor for Greater Tuna is Films for Good, Christine and Bob Williams.
ABOUT SLO REP
The San Luis Obispo Repertory Theatre is San Luis Obispo County’s only not-for-profit, professional regional theatre presenting a year-round season of professional theatrical productions in downtown San Luis Obispo. From 1947 to 2017, operating as San Luis Obispo Little Theatre, SLO REP was proud to be one of the oldest continuously running non-profit community theatres in the nation. To date, over 900 productions have been staged in 25+ locations around the county. In 2017, the theatre took a significant step forward and became a fully professional organization, rebranding as SLO Repertory Theatre. Governed by a volunteer board of directors and managed by a full and part-time staff of 16 theatre professionals, SLO REP presents an annual season of 16-20 shows featuring 200+ performances on 45 weeks of the year For more information about the show or SLO REP, please contact Patty Thayer at (805) 786-2440, ext. 15 or email [email protected].