A TUNA CHRISTMAS is Coming to City Theatre Austin

This December, keep your 2025 holiday season going strong with lots of fa – la – la – laughter as City Theatre Austin brings you the hit southern comedy A Tuna Christmas, the show with two actors, twenty-two characters and so much small-town fun you don’t want to miss.

Everything's bigger in Texas, including the folks and family we all know and love! It’s Christmas Eve in the Lone Star state and radio station personalities Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie report local news on the Yuletide activities that have gripped their little whistle-stop of Tuna, the third smallest town in Texas, where the Lion's Club is too liberal, and Patsy Cline never dies. What’s to be done about Joe Bob Lipsey’s disastrous Christmas Carol pageant, a sabotaged yard-decorating contest, and a mysterious phantom on the loose and spreading havoc? With quick-change zaniness and quicksilver one-liners, CTC all-star actors Scot Friedman and Rick Smith introduce us to twenty-two of the wildest citizens of one zany town bringing all the “joy to the world” that make the holidays so special. Oh, holy night!

A Tuna Christmas is the second in a series of comedies including the hits Greater Tuna, Red, White and Tuna, and Tuna Does Vegas each set in the fictional town of Tuna, Texas. The plays are at once an affectionate comment on small-town, southern life and attitudes, but also a withering satire of the same. For each show, the original writing is notable in that two men play the entire cast of over twenty characters of multiple genders, ages, and eccentricities. The first play, Greater Tuna, debuted in 1981 in Austin, Texas with A Tuna Christmas debuting in 1989. Jaston Williams and Joe Sears regularly tour the country to perform all four plays, with Ed Howard directing. Sears and Williams did command performances of both Greater Tuna and A Tuna Christmas at the White House for President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush.

A Tuna Christmas will once again pair up the dynamic duo Scot Friedman and Rick Smith, who appeared opposite of each other as Felix and Oscar in the highly successful The Odd Couple, as well as appearing together in the Austin Critic’s Table Award nominated The Seafarer and It’s Only a Play. The production is directed by Artistic Director Andy Berkovsky with original staging by Robyn Conner.

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