PlayNotes - Season 49, Issue 3 - A Tuna Christmas

Written by Ed Howard, Joe Sears, & Jaston Williams

Discussion Series

Join us for a Book Club-style Page to Stage with the Portland Public Library. Check out your copy of the script and join us two weeks before previews of each Mainstage Production. Scripts are available at the reference desk at the Main Branch of the Portland Public Library. This year discussions will be held in the Rines Room at 1:30pm two weeks before a show opens. Feel free to come and chat about the plays with Literary Manager, Todd Brian Backus; his Directing and Dramaturgy Apprentices, and special guests. Visit portlandlibrary.com/programs-events/ for more information.

The Artistic Perspective , hosted by Artistic Director Anita Stewart, is an opportunity for audience members to delve deeper into the themes of the show through conversation with special guests. A different scholar, visiting artist, playwright, or other expert will join the discussion each time. The Artistic Perspective discussions are held after the first Sunday matinee performance.

Curtain Call discussions offer a rare opportunity for audience members to talk about the production with the performers. Through this forum, the audience and cast explore topics that range from the process of rehearsing and producing the text to character development to issues raised by the work Curtain Call discussions are held after the second Sunday matinee performance.

All discussions are free and open to the public. Show attendance is not required. To subscribe to a discussion series performance, please call the Box Office at 207.774.0465.

HannaH Cordes, Paula Vogel, anita stewart, and todd Brian BaCkus in a talkBaCk, Portland stage ComPany.

A Tuna Christmas

By Ed Howard, Joe Sears & Jaston Williams

PlayNotes

Season 49 Editorial Staff

Editor in Chief

Todd Brian Backus

Contributors

Audrey Erickson, Nick Hone, Moira O'Sullivan, Rachel Ropella, & Liana SC

Copy Editor

Adam Thibodeau

Cover Illustration

Cody Brackett

Portland Stage Company Educational Programs, like PlayNotes, are generously supported through the annual donations of hundreds of individuals and businesses, as well as special funding from:

The Onion

Table of Contents

Letter from the Editors 5

Portland Stage's A Tuna Christmas

About the Play 6 Focus Questions 7 About the Characters 8 Pre-Show and Post-Show Activites 9

Interview with the Director: Julia Gibson 10 Interview with an Actor: Tom Ford 12

The World of A Tuna Christmas

Talkin' Tuna 14 Satire and Politics 16 A Tale of Two Texans 18 Glossary 21

Digging Deeper

From A Dinner Party to Broadway: How the Tuna Plays got their Start 24 Sinclair Broadcasting Group 25

Playing with Gender: Drag and Gender Performance in Tuna 27

KKK in Maine 28

'Smut Snatching' 'n Book Banning: Then and Now 30

Extras

Recommended Resources 32

Education and Outreach at PSC 33

Letter from the Editors

Dear PlayNotes Readers,

Welcome to a rootin' tootin' edition of PlayNotes!

In this issue, we explore the world of A Tuna Christmas, a sharp and biting satire written by Joe Sears, Jaston Williams, and Ed Howard. This play follows the town of Tuna, Texas, the fictional second-smallest town in Texas, as the community prepares for their upcoming holiday festivities. We explore the world of Tuna with the articles “From A Dinner Party to Broadway: How the Tuna Plays Got Their Start” (pg. 24) and “Talkin’ Tuna” (pg. 14). Want to learn more about how topics in Tuna apply to us today? Head over to articles like “‘Smut Snatching’ ‘n Book Banning: Then and Now” (pg. 30), “The Ku Klux Klan in Maine” (pg. 28) and "Sinclair Broadcasting Group" (pg. 25) where our contributors unpack some of this play’s satirical content. In “Satire and Politics” (pg. 16) and “Playing with Gender: Drag and Gender Performance in Tuna,” (pg. 27) we provide more context for A Tuna Christmas’ participation in some long standing comedy and storytelling traditions. This edition includes interviews with returning director Julia Gibson (pg. 10), and actor Tom Ford (pg. 12) who give insight into the creative development of this production.

When compiling each issue of PlayNotes, we strive to provide articles and interviews that give you insight into what the process has been like behind the scenes (see articles in “Portland Stage’s A Tuna Christmas”), contain pertinent information about the play’s setting and major themes (“The World of A Tuna Christmas”), and provide deeper dives into specific subjects that compelled our literary department (“Digging Deeper”). We include a list of books, films, plays, and television shows that we hope audiences will access for more cultural content that relates to the play (“Recommended Resources”).

We are so thrilled to have you join us on this Texan adventure and we hope these articles about the Tuna community can spark conversations about your own!

Sincerely yours,

The Portland Stage Literary Department

Audrey Erickson

Rachel Ropella

Moira O’Sullivan

Todd Brian Backus

About the Play

by Moira O’Sullivan

When asked about the play, Tom Ford, one of the stars of A Tuna Christmas, has said:

The Tuna plays have always been a love letter to Texas written with a poisoned pen. In the 1980s, Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard wrote these plays in reaction to the rise of the Moral Majority, a political organization founded in 1979 by Jerry Falwell, Sr., associated with the Christian Right and the Republican Party. The Tuna plays are fierce and funny satires of life in Texas and all around this country. They are brutal, and sadly, the targets that are mocked in these plays have only gotten a stronger foothold in both Texas and the United States. They feature flawed, sometimes truly horrible, funny human beings doing the best they can and sometimes still missing the bigger picture.

Satire is one of the few places in our society where we can speak truth to power and laugh. From Mark Twain to Saturday Night Live, we delight in poking fun at the powerful and uncomfortable forces in our lives. A Tuna Christmas lives in this long tradition, lampooning the lives of the socalled Moral Majority, but leaving us to question: Was this really written in 1989, or just last week? These characters are unhinged, but why do I feel like I know them? Should we let this keep on happening?

In this show, we return to Tuna, the fictional third-smallest town in Texas, on Christmas Eve. Radio hosts Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie give us the inside scoop on the highly competitive Annual Lawn Display competition, which has been continually sabotaged by the mysterious Christmas Phantom. As we hop around town visiting a variety of characters getting ready for the holiday, we see that, like the people themselves, Christmas is not perfect. Bertha can’t seem to get her teenage children (and cheating husband, for that matter) together to celebrate; Didi’s used weapon shop is alarmingly busy for this time of year; Joe Bob’s community theater production of A Christmas Carol might be doomed; and the Tastee Kreme forgot to thaw the hamburger meat before the lunch rush. For Tuna, this is shaping up to be a doozy of a holiday.

While there's no need to be familiar with Greater Tuna before settling in, patrons who saw Portland Stage’s 2013 production will be ready to laugh (and cringe) once again. Our cast of two takes on 22 roles over the course of the evening, bringing to life characters of all ages, genders, opinions, and beliefs. We encourage you to laugh at the absurdity and take ownership of the reality of the situations depicted on our stage. Take a step back from the picture-perfect holiday we romanticize every year, and contemplate whether the Tuna, Texas of the late 1980s is as far away from us as we'd like to think.

a CaCtus witH CHristmas ligHts on it.

Focus Questions

by Liana SC and Nick Hone

1. What is satire? What is its value as an art form?

2. What are the signs that a piece is satirical vs sincere?

3. In a play, how might satire manifest in multiple elements of the production (i.e. script, acting, props, sound, etc.)?

4. As a satire, this show has a point of view on its characters and themes; what do you think the playwrights’ point of view is?

5. Do you think A Tuna Christmas is an effective satire of “small-town America”? Why or why not?

6. Though A Tuna Christmas has been performed with both male and female-presenting actors, in this production, both actors are male-presenting. What do you think the significance of having male-presenting actors play both women and men in the show is? How might your interpretation of the show change if the genders of the actors were different?

7. Small towns can sometimes feel like a bubble. What are the benefits and drawbacks of being surrounded by people with similar beliefs?

8. How can you make sure you’re choosing reputable news outlets? What indicators might there be that a source is or is not factual?

tom Ford (aea), and natHaniel P. Claridad (aea) reHearsing For A TunA ChrisTmAs at Portland stage, PHoto By moira o’sulliVan.

About the Characters

by Moira O’Sullivan

Name: Tom Ford, AEA

Thurston Wheelis - A DJ at radio station OKKK. Elmer Watkins - “A local redneck,” that appears on the radio show to represent Klan 249. The victim of a "tragic" flamethrower incident, Elmer was left with no eyebrows.

Bertha Bumiller - A housewife and mother to Jody, Stanley, and Charlene; a member of the Smut Snatchers of the New Order. Desperately trying to get her family together for Christmas.

Leonard Childers - An entrepreneur and radio personality on OKKK. Running the “let the stops out” sale on the radio. Gray-haired, philandering. R.R. Snavely - A studier of UFOs and husband to Didi. Child-like, benign.

Pearl Burras - Aunt to Bertha and the matriarch of her family. Former riveter in Houston, TX, during World War II and now a local chicken farmer.

Sheriff Givens - A stereotypical small-town sheriff, fat and obnoxious. Called "Rubber Sheets" due to his having wet the bed at church camp when he was younger.

Ike Thompson - A not-so-bright highway worker. Inita Goodwin - A waitress at the Tastee Kreme who is always dating someone new.

Phoebe Burkhalter- Farley's wife, with a highpitched voice and an even higher hairdo.

Joe Bob Lipsey - The "not-the-marrying-kind" director of the Tuna Little Theater's "troubled production" of A Christmas Carol. Mentor to Charlene

Name: Nathaniel P. Claridad, AEA

Arles Struvie - A DJ at radio station OKKK; divorced. Didi Snavely - Owner of Didi's Used Weapons; middle-aged, gruff, chain smoker.

Petey Fisk - An employee of the Greater Tuna Humane Society; owns a half-coyote named Fresno and a Mexican Iguana named Paula.

Jody Bumiller - Youngest child of Bertha Bumiller; pre-teen son who keeps adopting animals against his mother’s wishes.

Stanley Bumiller - Aspiring taxidermist, fresh from reform school; Charlene’s twin. Trying to finish probation and get out of town. Involved in A Christmas Carol for his last bit of community service. Local pariah, everyone thinks he is the Christmas Phantom.

Charlene Bumiller - Daughter of Bertha Bumiller and sister to Stanley and Jody; infatuated with Joe Bob Lipsey who she is assisting on A Christmas Carol. Sour attitude.

Vera Carp - The town snob and acting leader of the Smut-Snatchers of the New Order; has won the Christmas contest 14 times. Self proclaimed pinnacle of Tuna’s “high-society,” she has money but no taste.

Dixie Deberry - Controller of the Tuna Electric Company; City Secretary who is going to shut down A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve if they don’t pay their bill. Cantankerous, has a black belt in karate.

Helen Bedd - A waitress at the Tastee Kreme, always has a new boyfriend (or a few).

Farley Burkhalter - A patron of the Tastee Kreme. Yosemite Sam type. Married to Phoebe.

Garland Poteet- A soda distributor and one of Inita's many boyfriends. Tall, lanky, goofy.

Pre-Show Activities

1. Using the resources in this issue of PlayNotes, Pick one of the following topics and research it. Once you have, find a partner who chose a different topic and tell them what you learned: Microaggressions, Racism and the KKK in Maine (see “Ku Klux Klan in Maine” on page 28 of this issue of PlayNotes), Racism in Texas, Christian Fundamentalism, Censorship (see “‘Smut Snatching’ ‘n Book Banning: Then and Now” on page 30 of this issue of PlayNotes)

2. Read the PlayNotes article “Sinclair Broadcasting Group” on page 25. Consider your local news or radio station. Research who or what owns the station. Who is the audience? What stories get run and why?

3. Read the PlayNotes article “Playing with Gender: Drag and Gender Performance in A Tuna Christmas” on page 27. Research the history of drag and gender performance and discuss how the cultural conversation has changed since the play’s 1989 debut.

Post-Show Activities

by Liana SC and Nick Hone by Liana SC and Nick Hone

1. Satire is intended to create dialogue. Write a letter to the playwrights with questions, comments, or insights about the play as you experienced it. Find a partner and share what you wrote.

2. Some insular communities have little ideological diversity, creating a “belief bubble." Consider a “belief bubble” you’re a part of. Have you ever met someone who disagreed with that belief/ position? What was their reasoning? How did you respond? Discuss with a partner.

3. What stereotypes did you see in the show? Why did the writers include these stereotypes in their script? What purpose, if any, do they serve?

tom Ford (aea), dustin tuCker (aea) PerForming in GreATer TunA at Portland stage in 2013, PHoto By aaron FlaCke

Interview with the Director: Julia Gibson

Edited for Length and Clarity by Moira O’Sullivan

Moira O’Sullivan: How has it been returning to Tuna ten years after directing Greater Tuna here at Portland back in the 2012-2013 season?

Julia Gibson: I was here at Portland Stage just last year directing Searching for Mr. Moon, and I always really enjoy being here; the company and staff are all really kind and accessible and really, really good at what they do. As for returning to the Tuna series, ten years is a long time. It's sort of amazing both how much I remember about that production and how much I've completely forgotten. But this year we have Tom Ford in it again and then we have an actor that was not in the other one. The show is a tour de force for two actors. It's really all about the two of them, who each play 11 characters. I think it's safe to say that the character of Bertha is at the center of this play, and perhaps even more than Greater Tuna ten years ago, so having Tom come back and be that centerpiece, there is something that feels solid and familiar about it. And yet Nathaniel [P. Claridad] is this brand new spirit in the world of this play, so it's both reminiscent and brand new. Also, the world around us has changed a lot in ten years, so it'll be interesting to see how the audience responds, if it feels different to the audience than it did ten years ago.

MO: Though it’s set at Christmas, this isn’t a typical Christmas show. How does satire set this one apart?

JG: I think that with the traditional Christmas plays like It's a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol , we expect them to be warm and fuzzy and maybe kind of sentimental and feel-good. But both Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life are pretty dark; the characters sort of struggle through their circumstances to get to the warm and fuzzy. I think that's actually the same with this play, but in a different way. It being a satire, it is very silly, very ridiculous. And yet I think there's something

warm and fuzzy about laughing, and laughing in community with other people, which, of course, is what live theater is all about. [Also,] there's the expectation of one's life and the expectation of Christmas itself versus reality and there’s a lot of disappointment and heartbreak in there; when the expectation loosens up a little, that's when the hope shines through. That's definitely present in A Tuna Christmas.

MO: What are you hoping the audience will take away from the show?

JG: I think it is the hope and the heart. I also think there's a reminder to have a sense of humor. We're in a very serious time right now, and it's hard to find a sense of humor sometimes. I think it's the heart and the hope and the humanity at the center of even the most ridiculous stuff.

MO: You’ve worked with both of these actors before, and in Tuna they’re tasked with playing 22 roles. How do you help the actors go about building each unique character?

JG: I mean, that is at the core of how to work on this play, isn't it? They're both extraordinary actors, so that makes my job

Julia giBson, direCtor.

so much easier. They bring in something new every day, they take huge steps forward in understanding the play for themselves. They didn't know each other before but they seem to have a great chemistry with one another and they're finding things together. I think they both work very differently. Nathaniel wants to feel the character in his body first, he wants to experiment with a voice and with how he walks and how he sits. Tom starts with a kernel of something inside and lets that grow; he starts with: what's at the core of this human being? What are they struggling with? What are their hopes? So my job is to let them both come at it from those two different directions and just respond to what they bring in. What I'm focused on is the whole story, and each specific story within the whole story. So what I'm responding to is, does this character help us tell this story? Or do we need to nudge the character in a slightly different direction?

MO: Yeah, I've seen you really building the relationships between the characters, which is what I think is so interesting about this world of Tuna . All the characters in this tiny town are connected and they all have different dynamics between each other.

JG: I think that's true, really, in any play. If you were to describe yourself as a character, you'd have to choose: what story am I telling? Because you could describe yourself [in] a lot of different ways. And so it becomes about how the character is in relationship to this other character? What's the part of the character that needs to come forward to tell this story or to be in relationship to this other human?

MO: How has your own experience of growing up near Texas influenced your work and perspective on this piece?

JG: I grew up in Oklahoma, and [while] Oklahoma and Texas are big rivals with one another, it is the same part of the world. Many of these characters are familiar to me, as crazy as that may sound, because they're larger than life and yet, they're not. I've seen real people just as large. They're real. So it's not a completely unfamiliar world to me at all.

MO: Within the political and cultural satire of the piece, there are moments of real human connection. Is there a moment in particular that you feel goes beyond the joke and shows us something genuine?

JG: There are actually quite a few moments that I think go beyond the joke. There's a beautiful scene with Petey, the character in the town who collects all the stray animals. And each scene he has a new bandage or crutch or something because all these animals are biting him or whatever, but he loves the animals [so] he takes care of them all. He has a beautiful scene when he's out looking for the Christmas star, and there are similarities between what he's talking about and what we know of as the Christmas story. He talks about wishing on the star and he says, “Peace on earth, goodwill to everybody.” He takes this moment to bring his sheep and his coyote and his iguana out to look for this star and to talk about his hope for peace on earth for everybody. So that's definitely one of my very favorite moments.

direCtor Julia giBson in reHearsal witH tom Ford (aea), and natHaniel P. Claridad (aea) PHoto By moira o'sulliVan.

Interview with an Actor: Tom Ford

Edited for Length and Clarity by Rachel Ropella

Directing and Dramaturgy Apprentice Rachel Ropella spoke with actor Tom Ford about working on two Portland Stage shows at once, growing up in Texas, and what’s making him laugh on Twitter.

Rachel Ropella (RR): You are currently playing Moriarty in Portland Stage’s production of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure while in rehearsals for A Tuna Christmas . What’s it like to balance two different shows at the same time?

Tom Ford (TF): I’ve done back-to-back shows at Portland Stage before, like when we did Greater Tuna, I had just been in A Christmas Carol, but never overlapping shows. However, I spent many years working for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival which is “in rep,” with multiple shows running at the same time. There have been many times where I would be in rehearsal all afternoon and then would perform a different show at night. So, I've done it quite a bit in the past, but I was younger and it was pre-COVID. It's just interesting where the mind goes because the mindset of West Texas and the mindset of England are very different worlds. It’s fun, but hopefully, I'll be able to keep them in their respective places.

RR: As someone who was born and raised in Texas, are there things in the play that stand out to you as staples of where you grew up?

TF: Yes, absolutely. I was born in Houston, Texas, and my family moved to Lubbock when I was five. It's the place that fascinates me, for many reasons, and one is that I know these types of people, the characters. I know that there's a universality to the play, but I grew up around those people. And some of those people are my family. The first time I got a chance to read the play, I also thought that this is a queer play. Writer Jaston Williams is out, and when I first encountered the play, I just intuited that someone who is also gay wrote this. Even though it hadn't been said in the script, it spoke to me in how it finds humor in lovingly, gently, but strongly skewering the world in which I grew up. There's just something really joyous about being able to be in a play where you lived that life—hearing your story told and getting to participate in it.

RR: How do you approach playing characters of a different gender identity than your own?

TF: I have played quite a few characters who have identified as a different gender than my own. I performed in I Am My Own Wife here at Portland Stage, and the character Charlotte is very clear, especially in her biography, that her pronouns are she. [Editor’s note: I Am My Own Wife focuses on the life of German trans preservationist, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, and was produced at Portland Stage in 2006.] It was really fascinating to get to explore. There was a talkback here, and I was talking about Charlotte and her life, when this woman in the audience said, “Would you please stop calling him a she?” and I said, “No, I won't,” and this conversation was way before we were engaging in how we talk about pronouns today, but I felt really passionately that, “I'm not going to stop, because those are her pronouns. That's how she refers to herself, I'm going to respect what she wanted and used.” I've

tom Ford (aea) in i Am my Own wife at Portland stage in 2006, PHoto By darren setlow.

always thought it’s fun how I get to explore my feminine side, to explore my masculine side— we're made up of so many different things. I think it's a real privilege to get to play someone who identifies as female and play someone who identifies as male. I get to just live in all these different heads and attempt to be truthful to all of them, you know, in whatever way I can.

RR: This is your second time portraying the colorful characters of Tuna, Texas, at Portland Stage. What’s a favorite moment you can recall from your time acting in Greater Tuna back in 2012?

TF: I love the moment where Pearl accidentally poisoned Uncle Henry's dog and then they ran it over with the car to make it look like an accident. There was this sound effect for it that was wild to hear every night, I loved it and it certainly got a reaction. Now, I don't think dogs dying is funny in any shape or form, to be clear—I love dogs and have a dog, but I think that moments like those are funny just because it’s so extreme—it’s so Tuna. And I remember that, but it’s so weird to start rehearsals for A Tuna Christmas because I am older, but I still have the ghosts of some of these characters.

RR: Do you have a certain character from Tuna that you’re specifically looking forward to performing again?

TF: I love the ladies—especially Bertha and Aunt Pearl. I love them, I think they're great characters and they remind me of my mama, my nonnie, and all sorts of women I've met. My mom is 96 years old, and let me tell you, she is tough in a way that guys never are. My mom is still enjoying and loving life and not being defeated even though she outlived her husband, outlived my sister, and she just will not let it get her down. Texas Women…they are just really strong.

RR: A lot has happened in the past 10 years in this country, let alone since this play was written in the 80s. Why do you think it’s so important that we should revisit the satire of Tuna with A Tuna Christmas right now?

TF: Because nothing's changed. It's still a good satire of what’s happening in our country. Sad thing is, when you read this play, it's not dated when it should be. This morning Julia [Gibson, the director] in rehearsal said, “It's dangerous when we can't laugh at our enemies,” and I think it's dangerous when we can't laugh at the things that anger us. Because you have to be able to see it from some other angle, you've got to be able to have some other response than fury or else you get tired out. So that’s the political aspect. But also, I really think that these are great, interesting characters and they're really heartfelt. It's this weird combo platter of stinging satire delivered by people you love. It’s a delicate, tricky thing to pull off. I remember reading an interview with [playwrights] Joe Sears and Jaston Williams where people would say to them, “You rewrote that line, you updated it!”, and they would have to respond “No, it's the same.” Because they're still pulling library books off the shelves across the country—it’s all very much part of the struggle that we're having. I think you have to be able to find some way to laugh and lots of writers still do this work. Paul Rudnick, a very popular gay playwright and author, makes jokes on Twitter that go right up to the line but always make me laugh. David Sedaris does the same in his essays and diaries. It all lives in the same world as Tuna. They're not diminishing what's serious—they're lifting it up for you to laugh at for a moment, but you still have to go back and solve the problem.

tom Ford (aea) in GreATer TunA at Portland stage in 2013, PHoto By aaron FlaCke.

Talkin' Tuna

by Moira O’Sullivan

Within the comedy of A Tuna Christmas, you may hear a turn of phrase that makes your ears perk up, makes you lean over to the person next to you, and ask “what on earth does that mean?!” The townspeople of Tuna, Texas have their own way of communicating. Check out this cheatsheet of Tuna slang so you can understand just what the locals are yappin’ about.

A Doozie: something that is extraordinary or outstanding. of its kind.

Bark up the wrong forest: a variation on “barking up the wrong tree,” to attempt or pursue a futile course of action, often by making some kind of suggestion or request.

Better hair on anchovies: Anchovies are often thought of as hairy, but in reality the little hairs are actually fish bones that are completely safe to eat.

Dips snuff and carries a spit cup: Using snuff (a smokeless tobacco product) is called dipping, where a pinch of snuff is placed between the lower lip and gum or cheek and gum. A spit cup is used because the saliva builds up in the user’s mouth. This sucking and chewing allows nicotine to get into the bloodstream through the gums, without the need to swallow the tobacco juices.

a tin oF anCHoVies.

Boxed my ears: to hit one on the head, especially on or around one's ears, usually used as a threat.

Cussin a blue streak: to swear rapidly in a constant, unending stream of curse words.

Doin’ diddly: a thing of little or no value; doing nothing.

DP & Diet DP: Dr. Pepper soda, made up of 23 flavors: cola, cherry, licorice, amaretto, almond, vanilla, blackberry, apricot, caramel, pepper, anise, sarsaparilla, ginger, molasses, lemon, plum, orange, nutmeg, cardamon, all spice, coriander juniper, birch, and prickly ash.

Fighting like cats in a bag: aggressive fighting by people who don't need a reason to argue or squabble.

Get the hell out of Dodge: idiom; you’re telling everyone that you need to gather your things and leave the area right now; can refer to other people, yourself, or the people you are with. Typically used in a lighthearted manner, but there are occasions when you can use it as a stern warning to others.

a Container oF snuFF toBaCCo.

Grody: repulsive; disgusting; nauseating.

Hair-lip: To hit someone in the face so hard it splits the upper lip. Offensive slang.

Hand over fist: an expression meaning rapidly, at a tremendous rate; derived from the nautical hand over hand, describing how a sailor climbed a rope.

Hole in the road: A community so small that the residents would have to dig a "hole in the road" to get any passing cars to stop.

Looks like death chewing on a cracker: To look extremely ill, exhausted, worn out, or close to death.

Not a notch on his gun: Refers to fictional cowboys and characters who would carve a notch on their weapon for every victim they’ve shot, so in this case, they haven’t used it.

Split the sheets: to get divorced; to divide up assets in a divorce.

They can track a flea over concrete: to be astute, have an incredibly keen eye, particularly with regards to hunting or tracking.

Tom catting: slang; for a man to pursue women in order to make sexual conquests.

To take a powder: to make a quick departure, leave in a hurry.

Worthless as titties on a boar hog: useless, pointless, ineffectual.

“Not the marrying kind”: A phrase used to insinuate that a single man is gay.

Screamed blue murder: a great, loud outcry.

Screamed like white trash at a tent meeting: Tent meetings (or tent revivals) were religious gatherings led by traveling evangelist ministers primarily throughout the South, bringing Baptist and Methodist services to communities without access to churches. Known for their spectacle fanaticism, minister showmanship, and performative faith healing.

Sit a spell: idiomatic phrase meaning to tell a story or catch up with someone.

an old wooden gun tHat a notCH Could Be CarVed into.

a wild Boar Hog

Satire and Politics

by Audrey Erickson

opinion as entertainment brought attention to the state of the government, eventually rallying the support needed to win the Revolutionary War.

As long as politics has existed, so has its mockery. Going back thousands of years to 400 BCE, when playwright and “father of comedy” Aristophanes wrote about religion and various political figures in Athens, artists and writers have used their mediums to humorously comment on the state of their government and topical affairs. Satire uses humor and exaggeration to comment on and ridicule current events or public figures, often pointing out hypocrisy, stupidity, or logical fallacies. Over human history, the making, distribution, and reception of satirical works have reflected the state of the world and the government’s relationship to the public.

In America, satire can be traced back to the early 1700s, when the colonies were seeking independence from Britain. At this time, most satire took the form of political cartoons, which could be enjoyed by both the upper class and the larger majority of illiterate working-class Americans. These cartoons permeated American and even British culture, their wide circulation planting them not only in newspapers, but on flyers and even chinaware, providing revolutionists the opportunity to subtly show their allegiance to dinner guests. The circulation of political

The cartoons not only impacted the majority opinion on Great Britain’s relationship with the colonies, but influenced American politics into the present day; cartoonist Thomas Nast popularized the donkey and elephant iconography of the Democratic and Republican parties thanks to his cartoons in Harper’s Weekly . With countless examples of satire entering mainstream culture throughout history, it's clear that the controversial humor sticks with us. But how do we gauge if satire is going too far?

To an extent, satire is inherently incendiary, as it seeks to explore often divisive topics and pushes the boundaries of acceptability in order to make a statement in an attentiongrabbing and entertaining way. "Robust satire is often a sign of crisis and the ability to share and consume it is a sign of a free society,” says Sophia McClennen, professor of international affairs at Penn State. “We see satire emerge when political discourse is in crisis and when it becomes important to use satirical comedy to put political pressure on misinformation, folly, and the abuse of power." That being said, the public reception to satirical works has varied wildly over time, with our barometer for what is going “too far” shifting depending on the larger context of what is going on in the world.

Satire plays an interesting role in our culture today; with increasing conversations around systems of inequality and who has the right to tell which stories (or make which jokes) and political and social divisions coming to a fever pitch, the fine line between effective satire and satire that goes too far is getting thinner and harder to anticipate. In 2017, comedian Kathy Griffin faced significant

a miCroPHone For a late nigHt talk sHow

professional and social backlash for posting a picture of herself holding a fake severed bloody head styled to look like Donald Trump. At the time, the fallout had Griffin posting tearful apologies over social media following a hugely negative reception, an FBI investigation, and her firing from CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage. Now, news outlets like NPR and The New York Times have written articles sympathetically painting Griffin as a comedian crucified for being too ahead of the times, with Griffin herself making a statement to the same effect and even reposting the image in 2020, following Trump’s false assertion that he won the 2020 presidential election. As political divisiveness increases, our collective consciousness becomes more desensitized to impropriety, and we become more tolerant of (and maybe more eager for?) bold and politically incorrect works, understanding them to be a response to the urgency of the situation.

Despite the warmer reception of the genre, satire staples of modern American culture have been struggling to stay relevant in today’s entertainment landscape. Late-night television, marked by its topical political humor, has been seeing lower and lower ratings. There are a handful of reasons for this: the genre’s format-incompatibility with streaming services, an oversaturation of similar shows commenting on the same issues, a heightened fixation on politics rather than human interest. One notable reason for the genre’s decline that is discussed less, however, is the writer and audience’s ability to evolve satire to work in the current climate.

Previously, late-night hosts had incorporated several topical subjects during their comedic monologues, focusing largely on Hollywood gossip; but ever since 2015, when Donald Trump’s bid for president started to gain traction, late-night hosts across television have fatigued their audience with non-stop jokes about the former president. In an attempt to capitalize on the pop

culture–politics crossover appeal of Donald Trump, hosts gave him increasing amounts of real estate in their talking points. However, when Trump got elected into office and his decisions had increasingly drastic effects on Americans and the world, audiences and writers alike grew tired of his coverage, even when delivered humorously.

In addition, satire’s reliance on comically emphasizing foolishness becomes difficult as political news becomes inherently absurd. As writer and director Zach Bornstein—who has worked for Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel Live , Netflix, and more—puts it, “I could write jokes for 800 years and I’d never think of something funnier than Trump booking the Four Seasons for his big comeback presser, and it turning out to be the Four Seasons Total Landscaping parking lot between a [sex store] and a crematorium.” Other writers are interrogating what it means to make humor around such a harmful figure. Former head writer of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon , Rebecca Drysdale, stated in 2020, “The project of…doing material about Trump, has led to divided creative teams, anxiety, tears, and pain. I can’t decide the outcome of this election, but I can make the choice for myself, to vote him out of my creative life.”

Satire is a powerful form of political and social commentary, but its efficacy heavily relies on satire writers and artists’ abilities to anticipate how current events will inform the audience reception. Some satires of the past, like A Tuna Christmas , provide commentary for issues still relevant today, even if the way we’ve come to talk about those issues has shifted. The question remains then: can we adapt satirical formats of the past to reflect today’s climate, or can satire only belong in the present?

A Tale of Two Texans

by Nick Hone

Walmart, Whataburger, anything you need to have any kind of fun is about 30 minutes away. And it's always been about 3000 people give or take. And it's a big farming-slash-industrial town. There's two kinds of manufacturing plants here as well as 40 miles in any direction surrounded by wheat fields. So that’s the area, geographic, demographic situation of where I'm from in Texas.

NH: Gotcha. And what was it like to grow up in such a small town?

Texas holds a complicated place in the cultural consciousness of the United States. It has a centuries-long history of Anglo-American and Spanish violence against Indigenous groups and African Americans, and remains to this day a bastion of conservative policies. But it also has some of the richest Hispanic cultural traditions in the nation, in everything from architecture to food to the very language Texans use daily. While it may be easy to reduce Texas to a twodimensional state of the conservative cowboys satirized in A Tuna Christmas, it is reductive and irresponsible to erase the contributions of generations of Hispanic, Black, and Inidgenous Texans to the culture of the Lone Star State. Education Apprentice Nick Hone spoke to Race Ricketts, an actor, musician, and native Texan, about what small-town life in Texas means to him and how that reflects on A Tuna Christmas.

Nick Hone (NH): You grew up in and are from a small town in Texas. Can you tell me a little about your hometown?

Race Ricketts (RR): Yes. So I am from a place called Olney, Texas. It is maybe 45 minutes south of the Red River, the Texas-Oklahoma border. Three hours east of Lubbock and two hours west of Dallas-Fort Worth. So it's very much in the middle of nowhere. The closest

RR: It's easy. It's very simple, slow. I think there's goods and bads to that, but it's just a place [where] time just seems to move a bit slower, in more ways than one. Real time moves maybe just a hair slower than big metropolitan areas. But also things don't quite hit here as quick as other areas. Big cities might be in 2022, whereas Olney might still have just hit the year 2000 in terms of technology and things like that. But yeah, time is just kind of slower and things are just a bit simpler here.

NH: How important is identity to a small town?

RR: There is a strong shared identity as “Texans." I think Texans love to be from Texas. I think that's kind of a cornerstone that's always gonna be there. But I think at the same time, at least in my town, and this can probably be said for most rural towns, if you're from here, more than likely you have generations going back that are also from here. My mother was born here, grew up here. My grandmother moved here when she was young. So there's three, almost four generations that have been centered and lived in this town. And that can be said for many other families as well. Farther back to the town's origins, if you ask some people. I think also there's just this sense of community, a neighborly aspect of small-town living that you don't quite see as fleshed out in many other places.

texan artist, raCe riCketts

NH: So they rely on each other in Olney?

RR: Absolutely. I know my next-door neighbor here. She is, I wanna say, in her mid-sixties. But she's a widow. She doesn't really have any other family. But whenever I'm out of town or my brother's out of town or something like that, she's always got an eye on the house or she'll, like, give us a text or a call if mail gets dropped off or packages get dropped off. And it's kind of the same thing for us if we're here and she's not. We kind of look out for each other.

NH: I was wondering if you could speak to any experiences with the sort of regressive ideology or bigotry growing up in a small town like we see in A Tuna Christmas

RR: Boy, that's a big old hunka steak of a question. There can be some dangerous and very unhealthy views of people of color. And I'm not saying that where I'm from is just this hotbed of racism and bigotry, but it's definitely there. I've seen it in the schools. I've seen it just about the town, but with that, people who espouse these views are not looked upon kindly by the community.

There's definitely a true sense of what's right and what's wrong. And I think small towns are no longer just encased inside this cultural ideological bubble anymore. The box in our pockets that can give us any piece of information out there has given us a window into other people's lives, other cultures, other ideas and ways of thinking like we've never had before. And now we choose to take those things and learn from them, or you can reject them with that bubble thinking. With our younger generation especially, people are becoming more and more accepting.

NH: What would you think Portland audiences would benefit knowing about life in Texas in general regarding diversity and regarding small-town life in itself?

RR: I was fortunate enough, even in a small school, to grow up with friends that did not all look the same. The majority of the town was White people, I would say. But if I'm just looking at the high school, it was about a 60-

40 split between White kids and students of Mexican descent. I kind of had this idea from a young age that these are just my friends. They may just look a little different than me, but they're just my friends.

I know every Christmas with my friend Bradley, his mother would always make tamales and he'd bring this big Excel sheet and he would take orders from people. And so every year around Christmastime, everyone would bring a $10 bill to school with them and give Bradley their money. And then sure enough, two weeks later, right before Christmas break, he'd show up with an Igloo cooler full of people's tamale orders and we'd all just put 'em in our backpacks. And that was a great thing. ’Cause, you know, the White kids, we didn't know how to make tamales. That's just one example that I think some of us probably took for granted and didn't realize just how lucky we were to be surrounded by cultures different from our own, but also [to be] so close to those friends, growing up.

I think it's very easy for audiences outside of the south and outside of places like Texas to view us as unintelligent, uncultured, hateful people. That's a very easy thing to do, but I don't think you'll gain as much from your audience [if you go for a] cheap laugh. But, if we as theater artists are all about wanting to present truth, even in very comical, almost borderline farcical situations, you still have to have a truth there.

NH: As a theater maker and a Texan, do you think that A Tuna Christmas’s satire still holds value in 2022? Why or why not?

RR: I think so, because those people do still exist. I don't think the authors’ intent was to put those jokes in for the sake of putting the jokes in because they thought they were funny. I think these were actual people that they knew that said these things at one point or another. I think you can almost present it as a test to your audience. It's gonna be interesting to see how they take those jokes.

It's kind of a balancing act. I've been to productions of this show where some people are wildly raging with laughter, and then

there's others along with myself that kind of hear those [jokes] and are uncomfortable, you don't quite know how to field those. But the older I am now, I understand why they're there. There are people that still say those things. And I can imagine it might be hard for actors to be super comfortable saying those jokes, but I do think it's important to understand that they might not be just the face value, there's probably some deeper diving to be done on them.

NH: Are there any local legends for your area or any specific folklore that you think audiences would find interesting or fun?

RR: I've got a song about it: the Pringle Rothell Christmas tree that used to exist. This giant yucca plant sat outside on one of the back

roads that all the teenagers would drive to, do back roading and [they] would have alcohol on them. I feel like I should preface, I don't condone underage drinking, but they would take all those empty cans and bottles and stick 'em on the yucca plant and make it look like a Christmas tree, if you will, with ornaments all over it. So that was a fun thing. This time of year they're probably getting ready to take like these solar battery–powered Christmas lights and they'll string it around it this time of year, but no one ever knows who does it. It’s a fun little quirky thing, and I think that's real sweet.

a CaCuts wraPPed in CHristmas ligHts.

Glossary

by Moira O’Sullivan

Andy Williams Christmas Album: Williams, known as “Mr. Christmas,” released his first Christmas album in 1963. It remains one of the most popular holiday releases of all time.

Baby Jane: Reference to the 1962 film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? starring Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, in which a former child star torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.

“Bali Hai”: Famous song from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical South Pacific, sung by the character Bloody Mary about a mystical island.

Baling wire: Also known as haywire, this thin type of wire is used to secure bales of hay.

Colonel Sanders: The founder of the fast-food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken, depicted in their marketing wearing a white suit, black tie, and glasses.

Covered-dish supper: A meal to which guests contribute food, such as casseroles, to be shared by all.

Banty rooster: A banty rooster or bantam rooster is a smaller version of a regular rooster. It can be about a quarter to half the size of a standard chicken.

Bouffant: A woman's hairstyle, in which the hair is teased to give a puffed-out appearance and often combed to frame the face.

Censorship: The action of preventing part or the whole of work of art, or other kind of communication from being seen or made available to the public because it is considered to be offensive or harmful.

Joan Crawford: (1904–1977) American actress, known for her roles in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Midred Pierce. After her death, her daughter released a tell-all book about her called Mommie Dearest that chronicled her abusive upbringing.

Crop-dusting: The spraying of powdered fungicides or insecticides on crops, usually from an airplane.

Bing Crosby: (1903–1977) American singer and actor, known for his crooning voice and his appearances in the holiday classic movies Holiday Inn and White Christmas, as well as his many recordings of classic Christmas songs.

Deuteronomy: The fifth book of the Old Testament, focusing on Moses’s addressing of the Israelites, enforcing certain laws of wellbeing before they enter the Promised Land of Canaan. Known for having many absurd, outdated, and problematic “laws."

a Banty rooster

aCtress Joan CrawFord

.

ERA button: A pin showing support for the Equal Rights Amendment, a gender equality and women’s rights amendment.

Faith healer: A professed Christian who mostly heals through prayer, laying hands on patients, and providing holy water and medicinal herbs.

Fifth wheel: A hitch that allows the driver to connect a cargo attachment to the back of a large vehicle, like a tractor or truck.

Fixing a cat: Also known as neutering; a surgical procedure performed by a veterinarian to remove a cat's testicles.

Frito pie: A staple menu item at Little League and high school sports concessions stands all over Texas, it is a pile of Fritos with chili on top, often served from the chip bag itself.

Hypoglycemic: Having an abnormally low level of glucose in the blood.

MYF: Methodist Youth Fellowship, a Methodist church group for teens.

Mame: An American musical written in 1966 by Jerry Herman, Robert E. Lee, and Jerome Lawrence, focused on Mame Dennis, whose eccentric, bohemian lifestyle is interrupted when her late brother's son is entrusted to her care.

Medea: A Greek tragedy play written by Euripedes; it centers on Medea who, after her husband Jason leaves her for the daughter of King Creon, kills their two sons and flees.

Mexican iguana: Mexican spiny-tailed iguana are large lizards with male bodies up to 18 inches in length with the tail another 18 inches. Though originally from Mexico and Central America, they can also be found in Florida and Texas.

The Miracle Worker: The broadcast, play, and film adaptations of Helen Keller’s autobiography, which tells the story of how Annie Sullivan taught Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, to communicate.

Moonpie: A snack food that consists of a graham cracker-like sandwich filled with marshmallow fluff and dipped in chocolate.

Fundamentalist: An adherent of fundamentalism, a religious movement characterized by a strict belief in the literal interpretation of religious texts.

Gunsmoke: A Western TV series airing from 1955–1975 about a marshall keeping order in Dodge City.

Hot checks: Also called bounced checks; checks where the amount they are written for cannot be collected because of lack of funds in the account.

Hot rodder: A driver or builder of hot rods (automobiles specially built or altered for fast acceleration and increased speed); a fast and reckless driver.

Audie Murphy: (1925-1971) America’s most decorated combat soldier in World War II as well as a famous movie star; Texas native.

Mustard gas: An oily liquid used as a chemicalwarfare gas, blistering the skin and damaging the lungs, often causing blindness and death; introduced by the Germans in World War I.

Mynah bird: A chatty, intelligent bird; one of the best avian mimics of human speech. Native to Africa, India, southeast Asia, and Indonesia.

The Night of the Iguana: A play written in 1961 by Tennessee Williams about tourists in a seedy Mexican hotel.

Homemade Frito Pie.

The Original Missing Link: A hypothetical intermediate evolutionary form between humans and their presumed ape ancestors from Darwin’s Theory of Evolution; an insult.

Pari-mutuel betting: Method of wagering introduced in France around 1870 that has become one of the world’s most popular methods of betting on horse races.

Philistine: Lacking in or hostile to culture; smugly commonplace or conventional.

Probation: A method of dealing with criminal offenders guilty of minor crimes or first offenses, by allowing them to be at large under supervision of a probation officer; the state of having been conditionally released.

A Raisin in the Sun: A play written in 1957 by Lorraine Hansberry about the Younger family, an African American family living together on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s who must decide what to do with the insurance money they receive after the death of the patriarch.

Requisition: An authoritative or formal demand for something to be done, given, or supplied.

Rhode Island Reds: A type of hen known for being very personable; their defining qualities are utilitarian, not good looks. They are the state bird of Rhode Island.

Lionel Richie: (b. 1949) American pop/soul singer-songwriter known for such hits as “Hello” and “All Night Long.”

Rio Bravo: A 1959 Western movie starring John Wayne and Dean Martin, in which a small-town sheriff enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.

Sheep dip: A lotion or wash applied to the fleece or skin of sheep to kill vermin, usually applied by immersing the animals in vats.

Skeet shoot: A sport played by hunters in the off-season to keep up their form.

Smut: Indecent language or publications; obscenity. In Tuna, the Smut Snatchers of the New Order are by and large wrong about what is actually “smut” and are overprotective of children.

Soul Train: (1970–2006) African American–focused music-dance television program that primarily featured performances by R&B, soul, funk, pop, and hip-hop artists

Striped pajamas: A prison or jail uniform with black stripes.

Stun gun: A battery-powered, handheld weapon that fires an electric charge when held against a person to immobilize a person briefly and without much injury.

Subpoena: The usual writ for the summoning of witnesses or the submission of evidence, as records or documents, before a court or other deliberative body.

Tierra del Fuego: An archipelago, or collection of islands, at the southern tip of South America.

Twenty-Two Skidoo: An expression meaning to clear out or get away in haste before getting into or causing trouble.

Vaya con dios: Spanish phrase meant as a farewell; translates to “go with God.”

Natalie Wood: (1938–1981) American actress known for Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story.

usHuaia, a City on tHe tierra del Fuego arCHiPelago.

From A Dinner Party to Broadway: How the Tuna Plays Got Their Start

by Rachel Ropella

What does it take for a play to get to Broadway? You might think of millionaire producers or an elaborate production that’s years in the making. However, for Joe Sears and Jaston Williams, two of the authors and the original performers of A Tuna Christmas, the journey to being a 1980s theatrical sensation looks a little different. Through a friendship, a dinner party, and a swimming pool, these two Texans went from community theater to performing on 42nd Street in the blink of an eye!

Co-creators Joe Sears and Jaston Williams became friends while working for a theater company in San Antonio, TX. After moving to Austin in 1980 in hopes of starting up their own professional theater company, the struggling duo had been asked to provide entertainment for a friend's dinner party. The Austin Chronicle later wrote of that auspicious evening that, “being liberals with a taste for satire, they opted to use the opportunity to smite the Right. Drawing on their mutual histories in little Western towns, they delivered dispatches from a reactionary radio station.” These radio station sketches were a huge hit at the party, inspiring Sears and Williams to develop it into a full-length play.

During the summer of 1981, Sears and Williams spent their days swimming at the Barton Springs pool in Austin, hopping out of the water every thirty minutes to improvise new sketches on a tape recorder. Williams talked to the Austin Chronicle about their writing process, reminiscing that “nobody feels like they're working any more than anybody else. We just do it. Collaborations are a crazy thing, but they sure are fun when everybody's laughing." With the help of the show’s director, Ed Howard, who contributed to the writing and financing, they had a show by the end of summer: Greater Tuna. Howard was a friend in the community theater who put his entire life savings ($10,000) into the production because he deeply believed it could be a success.

When they performed after Labor Day, the play made such a huge splash in Austin that it immediately got a second, extended run. That winter, a critic from Variety saw Greater Tuna and gave it a rave review, helping it launch from a dining room in Texas to Off-Broadway for a lengthy run, all within one wild year!

Together, Sears and Williams went on to write and star in three more plays, all directed by Howard and focused on the fictional small town, including A Tuna Christmas; Red, White and Tuna; and Tuna Does Vegas. An HBO special of Greater Tuna aired on TV, and the duo even performed A Tuna Christmas at the White House for President George HW Bush to ring in the holidays. In 1995, A Tuna Christmas was on Broadway, scoring Sears a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. Sears and Williams also consistently toured the nation with the Tuna series with Howard’s support, from 1981 up until Sears's retirement from the troupe in 2012, establishing a legacy of over 30 years.

While Sears and Williams have retired from Tuna, TX, they are still active in the theater scene back in Austin. Through directing and doing solo shows, both men have continued to pursue their love of theater and keep giving back to the city that gave them their success. Robert Faires, reporter for The Austin Chronicle noted, “Sears and Williams reinforce the sense of commitment these men have to this city and the artists who live and work here. They have a ticket that could take them almost anywhere, allow them to do almost anything, but what they choose to do again and again is return to Austin and make art with people they know and trust.” While Tuna may have seen the bright lights of New York, it’s clear the authors never forgot their early days of acting for friends during a party in Texas.

Sinclair Broadcasting Group

by Audrey Erickson

For decades, local radio and television stations have kept communities abreast of the happenings in their own backyard, from local events to politics, and even the occasional scandal. While in some ways local news promotes unity and closeness in a town, it can also be a way to normalize and amplify the community’s values, as we see in the world of Tuna. The echo chamber phenomenon—in which one listens to a small group of people who share their views, making it seem like those opinions are held by the majority—can have a dangerous effect on those who listen to one news source alone. Furthermore, news stations are not all created equal; with private owners, advertisers, and sponsors holding influence, what we may think of as factbased and politically-neutral news is actually considerably swayed—and sometimes even fabricated—by those who pay for it. Such is the case with Sinclair Broadcast Group.

The second-largest television station operator, Sinclair has been around (under different names) since the 1970s. They currently own and operate 193 local news stations, mostly concentrated in the South and in the Midwest, and have strong ties to national networks, such as Fox, ABC, and CBS. The company is decidedly right-leaning, and controversially has let their political beliefs impact their programming choices.

During Trump’s presidency, the company came under fire for a number of their programming decisions, including the choice to run antimedia promotional segments through their stations’ various news anchors. In these segments, viewers were discouraged from trusting in or engaging with other news outlets because, anchors cautioned, they didn’t factcheck their stories and therefore threatened democracy. Not only were these ads insidious for their statements, but by using local anchors whom audiences trust and feel attached to, the broadcasting giant sought to make their proTrump, anti-media messaging have a personal and organic touch to it. This was done in hopes

that Sinclair’s position would be believed by the 40% of American households they were reaching at the time.

Unfortunately, Sinclair’s sneaky move was not a standalone one. The broadcasting group continues to try to misinform audiences and sway their political leanings with cherry-picked news stories and narratives. A study from political scientists Gregory Martin and Josh McCrain shows that local stations bought by Sinclair rapidly change their focus from local news to national news, covering the news with a more conservative take. With Sinclair’s wide reach, and the number of Americans who rely on TV stations as their main source of news (about 68%, according to Pew Research Center), this biased reporting has damaging effects. Sinclair creates a skewed perception of reality and majority-opinion for its viewers, taking advantage of the presumed credibility of news to mislead them.

The shift in focus from local to national coverage is also dangerous. At first glance, it could be seen as innocuous, or even positive. Don’t national events have a larger impact on the country? Shouldn’t we know what’s going on outside of our town? While

Vintage Car radio dial.

national politics should be followed closely, the risk of under-covering local news is that it prevents the public from having access to information with which they could take action. By showing mostly national news (often with an outraged or defeated tone), a degree of apathy emerges from viewers because the issues feel too big and out of their control to do anything about; it’s difficult to stay engaged when every upsetting news story increases the burnout and fatigue of its viewership. In turn, Americans are becoming more passive in their political engagement because it’s hard to know where to start. By showing local news, citizens can feel encouraged and empowered to participate in their local politics; according to journalist and visiting Northwestern University professor Penny Muse Abernathy, local news “builds social cohesion, encourages political participation, and improves the efficiency and decision-making of local and state government.” As this can have a ripple effect to wider-reaching political landscapes, it is against the interest of corporations to provide their audiences with information that can be turned into action.

Local news stations have been a part of community structure as long as broadcasting technology has been around, but it is important to look into where your information is coming from, and what entities are paying to have their messages promoted. According to Alexios Mantzarlis, founding director of the International Fact-Checking Network, and Melissa Zimdars, assistant professor of communication and media at Merrimack College, there are a few low-effort things you can do to feel more confident that you are consuming news critically: find multiple reputable sources for a story; make sure there are quotes from individuals with appropriate experience or credentials to weigh in; and find the “About Us” or staffing page of the news distributor website to see who is in leadership and what outside ties they may have. While A Tuna Christmas showcases local news that is satirically uninformative, staying current with what’s happening in your community can teach you what the most urgent issues are, and how you can help.

a loCal newsCaster rePorting For tV.

Playing with Gender: Drag and Gender Performance in Tuna

by Rachel Ropella

In our production of A Tuna Christmas, actors Nathaniel P. Claridad and Tom Ford are each playing 11 characters—22 total! The rowdy cast of characters of Tuna, Texas, that they're portraying include men such as Sheriff Givens and Petey Fisk, as well as women like Aunt Pearl and Vera Carp. Tom Ford, one half of our dynamic duo, commented in his PlayNotes interview that “I've always thought it’s fun how I get to explore my feminine side, to explore my masculine side….I get to live in all these different heads and attempt to be truthful to all of them.” Playing with gender performance in theater has been around for centuries, leading to valuable commentary on gender and the development of art forms such as drag.

In places like Elizabethan England, it was illegal for women to act on stage professionally until 1661, as acting was seen as an unseemly profession. Cross-gender casting was the norm in Shakespeare’s time, with male actors playing such characters as Viola in Twelfth Night, who dresses as a man during the play. Within these plays, cross-gender casting and costuming was seen as integral commentary to the work. In her essay Come, Sir Boy: Subverting Masculinity Through Cross-Gender Performance, author Rachel Chung notes, “The gender of the actors functions not only in the external process of the show, but also as a device within the play, interacting with the text and…the audience is asked to zoom in on particular elements of the text that call gender and performativity into question”.

When thinking about gender performance, one might also think of entertainment outside of theater, such as performances by drag queens or kings. A drag artist is a performer who uses costumes and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate gender signifiers as they sing, lip-sync, and dance. The first self-proclaimed “queen of drag” was American LGBT activist, William Dorsey Swann. Swann, who had been born into slavery, started hosting drag balls in during the 1880s and was critical to the development of queer culture. Today,

because of influential documentaries like Paris Is Burning and shows like RuPaul's Drag Race, drag balls and shows have become popular and more mainstream.

In the world of A Tuna Christmas, you might wonder: is this play an example of drag or just cross-gender casting? It’s an interesting question, as this play could be considered both! When Joe Sears and Jaston Williams toured the country with the Tuna plays, they often referred to it as drag when talking about their overexaggerated performances of women like Vera Carp. “It’s still amazing to me that two men dressed mostly in drag could have such an effect on audiences,” said Sears to TexasMonthly. However, this play can also be an example of cross-gender casting since there have been performances in which one or both of the actors have been played by women. Rhonda Kulhanek spoke of her empowering experience playing a variety of complex characters and identities in Women in Theatre’s production of Greater Tuna: “All of these people I’ve met….These people are very real to me; some in a frightening way.”

Whether it’s in the world of Tuna or a Shakespeare play, playing with gender performance in the theater and drag today is still extremely popular and is no longer binary. With all-female Shakespeare productions, nonbinary performers like Iris Menas performing on Broadway, and RuPaul's Drag Race including trans performers like Gottmik, artists continue to explore how they can express their identity as well as comment on the wider world around them. Be it serious commentary, hilarious satire, or empowering entertainment, both drag and gender performance has been and continues to be a part of Tuna and the greater theatrical world.

william dorsey swann.

Ku Klux Klan in Maine

by Audrey Erickson

While you will see A Tuna Christmas portraying a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)—a White supremacist terrorist hate group—in Texas, it is important to acknowledge the Northeast’s history of engaging with the KKK. In fact, Maine had the largest enrollment of Klan members of all northeast states in the 1950s, and bringing awareness to Maine’s past and present race dynamics is crucial to the anti-racist work that we can do in Maine today.

The KKK got its start in America following the Civil War, as a social club for Confederate veterans. The club quickly turned into White Southern pushback against Reconstruction, which instituted constitutional amendments to protect the civil rights of Black Americans and sent federal agents to the South to establish more democratic state governments. Through meetings, conferences, and illegal raids, the KKK quickly established themselves as an excessively violent and racist group, resulting in their disbandment by 1870. That year also saw the passing of the Force Act and, in the following year, the Ku Klux Klan Act. Both acts “authorized federal authorities to enforce penalties upon anyone interfering with the registration, voting, officeholding, or jury service of blacks.” By 1882, the Ku Klux Klan was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, although the vast majority of members and chapters had disbanded by this point.

Unfortunately, the organization was only gone for a short time, as the KKK had a resurgence in 1915, when people were inspired by Thomas Dixon’s The Clansmen and its movie adaptation, The Birth of a Nation, both of which are known for their racist ideologies and positive portrayal of the KKK. The Birth of a Nation was a hugely popular film, with screenings nationwide and even at the White House, under the presidency of known KKK sympathizer Calvin Coolidge. The success of the film signified how these White supremacist ideas had gained traction and made their way into mainstream culture. Strategically invoking patriotism and nostalgia for the old South, the new iteration of the Klan focused on garnering support from smalltown White Americans who felt threatened by the surge of immigrants that had come to

America in the last few decades and changed the ethnic and racial make-up of communities. By the 1920s, the Klan’s membership was higher than it had been in the late 1800s, with over 4,000,000 members. This was during the time that Maine began to get involved with the terrorist organization.

While the Klan was—and is still today—most closely associated with their anti-Black bigotry, the KKK was against any form of immigrants to America, and intentionally capitalized on the preexisting tension between the Englishdescended Protestants and the Irish-Catholic immigrants who were relocating to Maine at an unprecedented rate. With these tensions rising, the Klan was able to find a foothold in Maine more than any other northeast state, with thousands of member enrollments. Once their presence was established, the KKK targeted

The BirTh Of A nATiOn direCtor d w griFFitH Posing witH kkk symPatHizer President CalVin Coolidge.

Portland’s Chamber of Commerce and enlisted help from White supremacists in Maine to put pressure on the Chamber to change the structure of the local government.

The plan was called the “Sumter Plan,” or later the “Dayton Plan,” named after the US cities in which the Klan had successfully restructured city and government operations to impede the growth and prosperity of Black communities. It involved convincing the local government to replace elected city mayors with city managers, hired and controlled by a reduced city council to reflect the reduced number of electoral districts, and the plan—promoted as a forward-thinking way of making government more efficient and business-friendly—actively gave Black communities less voting power. Further, there were no elected figures to go to when their jobs were taken away and given to White men who would be able to be promoted up through the company.

By 1923, Portland had made moves to implement the Klan’s plan; the previous nine electoral districts were redrawn into five, the city’s mayor removed and replaced with a city manager, and the previous 27 councilors reduced to five, all elected by a city-wide vote that weakened the Black population’s input

on the outcomes. This kind of restructuring that has taken power from Black voters has continued over the last century, with damaging long-term impacts. Even today in Portland, the way electoral districts are drawn dilutes the power of Black voters, and poverty and policing rates for Black people in Maine are disproportionately high when looking at the rates of White Mainers. As put by Samuel James, host of the podcast 99 Years, which delves into Maine’s history with the KKK and the state’s current status as having the smallest Black population, “When you have a system designed to strengthen White supremacy, the outcomes are fairly predictable.”

So what is to be done, when the legacy of a White supremacist country looms closer than we may have thought? Part of our responsibility is to understand this history and the parts we’ve played in it; while A Tuna Christmas touches on the influence the KKK has on small southern towns, it is important to know that Maine has its own history with the group. Understanding where our current inequalities stem from and instructing ourselves further will help us figure out how to take action now, from voting, to getting involved with community organizations, to educating the people in your own life.

Voting in loCal eleCtions is a great way to eFFeCt CHange in your Community

‘Smut Snatching’ ‘n Book Banning: Then and Now

by Rachel Ropella

In A Tuna Christmas, characters Vera Carp and Bertha Bumiller are portrayed as “holier-thanthou” church ladies and members of the Smut Snatchers of the New Order. Appearing in many of the Tuna plays, the Smut Snatchers try to ban books, change definitions in the dictionary, and remove what they consider to be “dirty words” from A Christmas Carol. When concern is raised over how A Christmas Carol could be inappropriate, Bertha responds, “Smut Snatchers are here for everyone’s protection. Censorship is as American as apple pie, so shut up.” While the Smut Snatchers is a fictional organization played for laughs in A Tuna Christmas, it was inspired by real organizations in the 1980s who used the same rhetoric. However, book banning is not just a movement from the past; it is still a hot-button issue throughout the country and is happening today in Texas as well as here in Maine.

Back in the 1980s when A Tuna Christmas was written, authors Joe Sears and Jaston Williams were satirizing organizations like Moral Majority, an American political organization founded in 1979 by televangelist Jerry Falwell, who led the push for major book bans in the ’80s. These bans in Texas spanned from school textbooks that spoke about evolution

to literature that had strong language, contained sexual content, centered on race, or challenged longstanding narratives about American history. Falwell claimed these bans were to protect children from immoral themes and “anti-Christian” ideals. Erin Blakemore for National Geographic observed, “Even as social norms relaxed...school libraries remained sites of contentious battles about what kind of information should be available to children.”

Yet in Texas, this battle over school libraries wages on today. A 2022 report created by the free speech nonprofit organization, PEN America, found that 32 states had instances of book banning and that Texas leads the nation with 800+ titles banned across 22 school districts during the 2021–2022 school year. Researchers found that most of the books on the banned list centered on racism and LGBTQ+ themes.

There has also been a country-wide reemergence of organized groups calling for school boards to ban certain books, similar to how the fictional organization of the Smut Snatchers works. In their 2022 report, PEN America has “identified at least 50 groups involved in pushing for book bans across the

a CHild in a sCHool liBrary.

country operating at the national, state or local levels….Most of these groups (including local chapters) appear to have formed since 2021 (73 percent).” PEN America goes on to emphasize how much power these local chapters carry, stating they “have played a role in at least half of the book bans enacted across the country during the 2021–22 school year.”

It’s easy to think that book banning is a problem only happening far away, but it is also happening close to home, right here in Maine.

In the past few months, multiple Maine school boards have had contentious debates with the community over books parents have wanted to ban. The books in question? Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin, and Robie H. Harris' It's Perfectly Normal. This August, Gender Queer was removed from the library of Dirigo High School in Dixfield by a school board vote of 7-2, while Bonny Eagle School Board in Standish voted to not ban it just this October. Meanwhile, the Woolwich Central School library in Woolwich has a parent trying to appeal a decision to keep Beyond Magenta on the shelves right now, this November.

In a time when book banning is on the rise, it takes a community to fight back against censorship. The American Library Association (ALA) advises that, when it comes to preventing book banning in your area, “Stay informed. If you hear of a challenge at your local library, support your librarian….Find out your library's policy for reviewing challenged materials.” The ALA’s website also lists actions that you can do to engage with your community when a school board is challenging a book: “Write letters to the local editor, your public library director and your school principal supporting the freedom to read. Talk to your friends about why everyone should be allowed to choose for themselves and their families what they read.” Taking these small steps can help make a big impact in ensuring that students are able to read about important, challenging issues and identity-affirming narratives, opposing the Vera Carps of the world.

The Top 10 Most

Challenged

Books of 2021, According to the American Library Association:

1. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

2. Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

3. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

4. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez

5. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

6. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

7. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews 8. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

9. This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson

10. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin

staCk

Recommended Resources

by Editors

More Tuna Plays and Other Satirical Plays:

Greater Tuna (by Ed Howard, Jaston Williams, and Joe Sears) Red White and Tuna (by Ed Howard, Jaston Williams, and Joe Sears)

Tuna Does Vegas (by Ed Howard, Jaston Williams, and Joe Sears) The Thanksgiving Play (by Larissa FastHorse)

Films and Documentaries:

God Forbid (Hulu)

Paris is Burning (dir. Jennie Livingston)

The Producers (dir. Mel Brooks)

Waiting for Guffman (dir. Christopher Guest)

TV Saturday Night Live

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

RuPaul’s Drag Race

Satirical Newspapers Online

The Onion

Reductress

ClickHole

Broadway Beat

Podcasts: 99 Years (Samuel James)

tom Ford (aea), and natHaniel P. Claridad (aea) reHearsing For A TunA ChrisTmAs at Portland stage, PHoto By moira o'sulliVan.

Portland Stage Company Education Programs

Join Portland Stage as we discuss, debate, and explore the plays on our stage and in the classroom! Portland Stage is dedicated to bringing exciting theater, inspiring conversation, interactive experiences, and thought-provoking literature to a wide audience of youth and adult learners. Whether you take part in a discussion, subscribe to PlayNotes, take a class in our Theater for Kids space, or bring a group of students to see a performance, there is something here for everyone. How would you like to participate?

Student Matinee Series

The Portland Stage Student Matinee Program annually provides more than 7,000 middle and high school students from Maine and New Hampshire with discounted tickets for student matinees. We would be happy to do a workshop pre-show or post-show with you too!

Play Me a Story

Experience the fun and magic of theater on Saturday mornings with Play Me a Story! Ages 4 – 10 enjoy a performance of a children’s stories followed by an interactive acting workshop with Portland Stage’s Education Artists for $15. Sign up for the month and save or pick individual days that work for you. Build literacy, encourage creativity and spark dramatic dreams!

After School Classes

After school classes at Portland Stage produce a safe environment for young people to find a higher sense of play, stretch their imaginations, and gain valuable social skills such as listening, risk-taking, ensemble building, public speaking, and leadership through storytelling. These classes are fun, creative, spontaneous, and begin to build skills for the young actor or non-actor’s voice, body, and imagination. Visit our website for this year’s offerings!

Vacation and Summer Camps

Our theater camps are fun, challenging, and enriching. We use stories of all kinds to fuel these active, educational and lively, process-based week-long school vacation and summer programs for youth. Theater for Kids works with professional actors, directors, artisans, and composers. Students are invited to think, speak, and act imaginatively, critically, and creatively in an environment of inclusivity and safe play.

PLAY Program

An interactive dramatic reading and acting workshop for elementary school students in grades Pre-K to 5. Professional teaching artists perform children’s literature and classic poetry for the entire school, and then work with select classrooms in workshops based on the stories. Actors actively engage students in small groups/workshops using their bodies, voices, and imaginations to build understanding of the text while bringing the stories and characters to life. PLAY helps develop literacy and reading fluency, character recall, understanding of themes, social emotional skills, physical storytelling, and vocal characterization. The program also comes with a comprehensive Resource Guide filled with information and activities based on the books and poems.

Directors Lab

Groups watch a 50 minute production of a Shakespeare’s play performed by professional actors/ teaching artists. After the performance, students engage directly with the text in an interactive workshop with the actors and creative team. In these workshops, students practice effective communication, creative collaboration, rhetowric, and critical analysis. The program also comes with a comprehensive Resource Guide filled with information and resources about the play we are focusing on. Directors Lab puts Shakespeare’s language into the hands and mouths of the students, empowering them to be the artists, directors, and ensemble with the power to interpret the text and produce meaning.

Portland Stage Company

Anita Stewart Artistic Director

Martin Lodish Managing Director

Artistic & Production Staff

Todd Brian Backus Literary Manager

Jacob Coombs Associate Technical Director

Aisling Dono Education Assistant

Ted Gallant Technical Director

Myles C. Hatch Stage Manager Meg Lydon Stage Manager

Mary Lana Rice Production Manager & Lighting Supervisor

Julianne Shea Education Administrator

Seth Asa Sengel Asst. Production Manager & Sound Supervisor

Michael Dix Thomas Education Director Susan Thomas Costume Shop Manager

Administrative Staff

Paul Ainsworth Business Manager

Beka Bryer Front of House Associate Chris DeFilipp House Manage

Allison Fry Executive Assistant Beth Given Development Director Lindsey Higgins Development Associate James Hadley Assistant Marketing Director Jennifer London Company Manager

Renee Myhaver Assistant Box Office Manager

Donald Smith Audience Services Manager

Madeleine St. Germain Front of House Associate Adam Thibodeau House Manager

Shannon Wade Front of House Associate

Apprentice Company

Amanda Cooper Stage Management Apprentice

Audrey Erickson Directing & Dramaturgy Apprentice

Nick Hone Education Apprentice Madison MacDonald Props Apprentice Andrej Nawoj Costumes Apprentice Moira O'Sullivan Directing & Dramaturgy Apprentice Elizabeth Randall Costumes Apprentice Rachel Ropella Directing & Dramaturgy Apprentice

Liana SC Education Apprentice

Ashley Ward Lighting & Sound Apprentice

Brady Willis Stage Management Apprentice

Thalia Wolff Company Management Apprentice