A Tuna Christmas

DATES Nov 30 - Dec 24, 2022

RUN TIME Approximate two hours and 15 minutes, including one intermission

PLAYWRIGHT Ed Howard, Joe Sears, & Jaston Williams

DIRECTOR Julia Gibson

A Tuna Christmas

About the Play

Come on back to Tuna (the third smallest town in Texas) for the holidays! Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie will keep you up to the minute with all the local news as they follow the contentious annual lawn display competition and try to unmask the Christmas Phantom.

The Tuna plays have always been a love letter to Texas written with a poisoned pen. Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard wrote these plays in response to and reaction against the rise of the Moral Majority, a political organization associated with the Christian Right and the Republican Party founded in 1979 by Jerry Falwell, Senior. 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. Like an American Chekhov– featuring flawed, sometimes truly horrible, funny human beings doing the best that they can and not succeeding.

Satire is one of the few places in our society where we can speak truth to power and laugh. From Aristophanes to Mark Twain, and Saturday Night Live to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver we delight in poking fun at the powerful and uncomfortable forces in our lives. A Tuna Christmas lives in this long tradition, and we encourage you to join us for to laugh, think, and contemplate whether Tuna, Texas of the 1990s is as far away from us as we think.


A Tuna Christmas is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc www.concordtheatrscals.com

Julia Gibson is very happy to return to Portland Stage. Last year she directed Searching for Mr. Moon, and several years ago …. Greater Tuna. She has directed with Rattlestick, Barrow Street, Origin Theatre, ManhattanTheatreSource and Epic Theatre Company in New York City; and at Chautauqua Theatre Company, Gulfshore Playhouse, New London Barn, Juilliard, NYU Graduate Acting, SMU in Dallas, The Actors Center Conservatory, A.C.T. Conservatory in San Francisco, Stony Brook University and Stella Adler Conservatory. She was Associate Director of the revival of Angels in America at The Signature Theatre. As an actor she has performed on and off Broadway and at major theatres across the U.S., as well as on TV and film. She is currently Co-Head of the Graduate Acting Program at UNC Chapel Hill where she also serves as a company member of PlayMakers Repertory Company. She received her MFA in Acting from New York University and is a founding member of The Actors Center in New York City as well as the National Alliance for Acting Teachers; she is a Fox Fellowship recipient and has narrated over 160 audio books. Julia recently received a Carolina Women’s Center Faculty Scholarship grant to create a theatre piece about women and aging.

Tom Ford Portland Stage: Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, The Last Ship to Proxima Centauri, A Christmas Carol, Read to Me, Greater Tuna, Bach at Leipzig, The Mystery of Irma Vep, I Am My Own Wife, The Snow Queen, Iron Kisses, The Woman in Black, Lend Me a Tenor, Art, and Gaslight. Boise Contemporary Theater: The Show on the Roof (World Premiere of a New Musical, book by Tom Ford, music and lyrics by Alex Syiek), Lewiston, Tru and This Wonderful Life. Northern Stage: It’s a Wonderful Life: A Radio Play and Miss Trunchbull in Matilda. Idaho Shakespeare and Great Lakes Theater: Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Wargrave in And Then There Were None, the Fool in King Lear, Sidney Bruhl in Deathtrap, Sweeney in Sweeney Todd, Thenardier in Les Miserables, Argan in The Imaginary Invalid, Mr. Paravicini in The Mousetrap, Baker in Into the Woods, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened…, and the title role in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. New London Barn Playhouse: The Odd Couple, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Drowsy Chaperone, A Funny Thing Happened…, Hairspray, Harvey, The Pirates of Penzance, The Producers, and She Loves Me. Broadway: By Jeeves. tomfordactor.com.

Nathaniel P. Claridad Off-Broadway/NYC include: Here Lies Love (The Public Theater), Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History…(St. Ann’s Warehouse); Regional credits include work at The Kennedy Center, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Folger Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Two River Theatre, Cape Fear Regional Theatre, Imagination Stage, Hangar Theatre, Barrington Stage Company, Florida Studio Theatre. International credits include work at the Brisbane Festival and the Sydney Opera House with Dead Puppet Society. TV: New Amsterdam, Harlem. As a director, credits include work at Weathervane Theatre, Imagination Stage, Southern Rep., Out of the Box Theatrics, as well as being named a Drama League Resident in 2019 & 2016. MFA: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Actor 1 Tom Ford*

Actor 2 Nathaniel P. Claridad*

[*member Actors' Equity Association]

[**member United Scenic Artists]

[***Stage Directors and Choreographers Society]

Director Julia Gibson

Scenic Designer Randall Parsons**

Costume Designer Cole McCarty**

Lighting Designer SeifAllah Salotto-Cristobal

Sound Designer Seth Asa Sengel

Stage Manager Myles C. Hatch*

Show Gallery

Based on the original 1899 play by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure

DATES Oct 26 - Nov 20, 2022

RUN TIME Approximately 2 hours & 15 minutes, including intermission.

PLAYWRIGHT Steven Dietz

DIRECTOR Kevin R. Free

Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure

About the Play

Follow Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson on two of the detective’s most daring cases: A Scandal in Bohemia and The Final Adventure. Effortlessly woven together by Steven Dietz, these stories introduce us to Sherlock’s greatest love, Irene Adler, and his fiercest rival, James Moriarty.


Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure is presented
by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.

Portland Stage and the Hangar Theatre Company present

The Great Leap

DATES Sep 14 - Oct 2, 2022

RUN TIME approximately 2 hours with one 15-minute intermission.

PLAYWRIGHT Lauren Yee

DIRECTOR Natsu Onoda Power

The Great Leap

About the Play

Manford is 5’5”, Chinese American, and desperate to make it onto the USF basketball team. If he can run the court as well as he runs his mouth, he might have a shot. Against his better judgment, Saul Slezac, the man who brought basketball to China, brings Manford to Beijing for a friendship game in the summer of 1989.


The Great Leap is presented by special arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com


Critics and Audiences Agree: The Great Leap is a Slam Dunk.

“The Hangar makes the shot, brilliantly…”

About our Co-Producer – The Hangar Theatre creates and presents performances of exceptional quality in New York State’s Finger Lakes region while teaching and mentoring the next generation of theatre artists. They enrich their community, at both the local and national level, with work and classes that inspire, entertain, and enlighten. The Hangar produced its first fully realized performances in summer 1975 in a newly renovated theatre space converted from a WPA-era airplane hangar– once an essential training ground for WWII pilots–on the banks of beautiful Cayuga Lake. The project was community driven from the start, led by Ithaca-area theatre-lovers aspiring to create a vibrant central arts campus for the region and tourists alike. Now a year-round venue engaged in its 47th season, the Hangar Theatre Company offers professional theatrical productions during an expansive and diverse summer season (June-August) and hosts local and national musical acts, community arts groups and events, and education programs off-season (September to May).

Lauren Yee (Playwright) was the second most produced playwright in America for the 2019/20 theatrical season (as per American Theatre Magazine). Her plays include CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND (South Coast Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, City Theatre, Merrimack Rep) and  THE GREAT LEAP (Denver Center, Seattle Repertory, Atlantic Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Arts Club, InterAct Theatre, Steppenwolf). Honors: Doris Duke Artists Award, Steinberg Playwright Award, Whiting Award, Steinberg/ATCA Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters literature award, Horton Foote Prize, Kesselring Prize, Primus Prize, Hodder Fellowship, #1 and #2 plays on 2017 Kilroys List. New Dramatists, Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab, Playwrights Realm alum. TV: Pachinko (Apple), Soundtrack (Netflix). BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD.  www.laurenyee.com

Manford Ray Yamamoto

Connie Eileen Doan

Wen Chang Norman Garcy Yap*

Saul Jim Shankman*

[*member Actors' Equity Association]

[**member United Scenic Artists]

[***Stage Directors and Choreographers Society]

Director Natsu Onoda Power***

Scenic Designer Anita Stewart**

Costume Designer Nicole Wee**

Lighting Designer Alberto Segarra**

Sound Designer Kathy Ruvuna

Projection Designer Dylan Uremovich

Stage Manager Myles C. Hatch*

Show Gallery

Maine State Music Theatre & Portland Stage present

Smoke on the Mountain

DATES Aug 3 - Aug 28, 2022

PLAYWRIGHT Book by Connie Ray, Conceived by Alan Bailey

MUSIC & LYRICS arrangements by Mike Craver and Mark Hardwick

DIRECTOR Jeff Stockberger

Smoke on the Mountain

About the Play

Book by Connie Ray
Conceived by Alan Bailey
Musical arrangements by Mike Craver and Mark Hardwick

Smoke on the Mountain tells the hilarious and heartwarming story of a Saturday Night Gospel Sing at a country church in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains in 1938. The show features two dozen rousing bluegrass songs played and sung by the Sanders Family, a traveling group making its return to performing after a five-year hiatus – Concord Theatricals

Smoke on the Mountain is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com

Rev. Mervin Oglethorpe John Vessels Jr.*

Burl Sanders Larry Tobias*

Vera Sanders April Lee Uzarski*

Stanley Sanders Andrew Crowe*

Denise Sanders Elleon Dobias

Dennis Sanders Daniel Emond*

June Sanders Sarah Hund*

[*member of Actors' Equity Association]

Director Jeff Stockberger

Musical Director Andrew Crowe

Scenic Designer Anita Stewart**

Costume Designer Kathleen Payton Brown

Light Designer Jamie Grant

Sound Designer Chris Fitze

Stage Manager Meg Lydon*

Assistant Stage Manager Grace Kellar-Long

[*member of Actors Equity Association]

[** member of United Scenic Artists]

[***member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society]