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PrintTuna does Bartlesville
Playwright and actor Joe Sears takes native roots to world stages. This month, he comes to Tulsa.
By Lori Roll
What do Bertha Bumiller, Thurston Wheelis, Rev. Sturgis Spikes, Aunt Pearl Burras, Joe Bob Lipsey and Yippy the Dog have in common? They are all characters created and performed by Bartlesville’s own comedic son Joe Sears, the acclaimed playwright, co-creator and co-star of the Tuna plays.
The original Tuna trilogy - Greater Tuna, A Tuna Christmas, and Red, White and Tuna - was co-written by Sears, Jaston Williams, and Ed Howard as affectionately biting commentaries on deeply conservative small-town America.
Enormously popular, the Tuna plays have been performed for American and international audiences for 25 years. They have gained Sears and Williams enduring acclaim for their on-target portrayals of the two-dozen deliciously wacky male, female and animal characters inhabiting the fictional panhandle town of Tuna, Texas.
Closer to home, Joe Sears knows all about small-town America. A native of Bartlesville, Sears’ family roots stretch back over 140 years, when his great-great-grandfather Joseph Hardin Bennet became the first white man to settle in Indian Territory after the Civil War.
“He came to hunt buffalo and stayed to build a trading post on Silver Lake in Bartlesville,” Sears says. “He was prosperous and he built a school at Hillside, Oklahoma. The Sears have had their share of preachers and teachers,” he said.
The middle of three sons, Joe Sears didn’t stray far from the family tradition. His younger brother Earl is serving in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives after a 30-year career as an educator and the principal of Bartlesville’s Central Middle School. Older brother Doug is a cowboy and rancher in Nowata, following in their father’s and uncles’ footsteps.
“We came from a family of farmers and ranchers. We learned what it took to be successful.”
They also learned diversity. Our parents divorced in the 1950’s when it was taboo,” Sears recalled.
Then their mother remarried.
“We did everything we could to kill our stepfather,” Sears says. “He finally won us over because he would do things normal dads would do like go on picnics, water ski and play hide-and-seek. He turned out to be one of the most influential people in my life.”
Sears recalls his early days in Bartlesville as the spark that lit a passion for acting.
“I loved movies so much as a kid,” he said. “When our parents divorced, the movies were a great diversion. We lived downtown and went to the Arrow Theater across from May Brothers. The Arrow Theater got the scary black and white movies and the Osage Theater got the Bible epics. You could go between the two theaters all day long and into the night. Earl and I ate pickles and drank cherry Cokes.”
“I loved re-enacting the movies. I directed, produced and starred in the shows, often forcing Earl to play the bit parts. If a new vampire movie came out, I would go to the Arrow and memorize the dialogue so I could go home and produce it. I loved wearing those capes. I recall several movies I actually tried to costume for my role playing, like the 1960’s version of Mutiny on the Bounty. I was captivated by British actor Trevor Howard playing the role of Captain Bligh. It was my earliest pursuit of a passion for great character acting,” he said.
Sears credits early arts pioneers Charlotte Lyke of Bartlesville Ballet and Jane Robertson of Bartlesville Little Theater with providing a strong base for the arts in Bartlesville.
“I’m very proud of my hometown,” he said. “We all benefited from the things Phillips Petroleum provided for our town. My big influence was Bartlesville Little Theater, which was very good, and I wanted to be a part of it. And we had an orchestra. I participated in the Bartlesville Art Association shows in Johnstone Park. One of my paintings got Honorable Mention and I was just thrilled.”
Sears’ introduction to the lure of acting also came through his church.
“I attended the First Baptist Church of Bartlesville. I didn’t know it then, but saw later that a Baptist upbringing was a good adjustment to life,” he said.
Sears got a part in the Sunday school Easter pageant as a Roman soldier.
“I loved the costumes and the high drama,” he says. “There was so much movement and emotion. That’s what drama is all about, to move people. I liked the empathy I felt from the audience and thought, ‘I want some more of this,’” he said.
As he gained experience, Sears graduated from movie re-enactments, church and school plays to Shakespeare at Bartlesville College High, and classical acting in community theaters.
“I didn’t sit home and want it; I got out and did it. From the beginning I’ve loved Shakespeare. It takes great study and detail. Study and detail is what went into creating Tuna. It’s a lot of work. Bertha Bumiller deserves the same amount of attention as King Lear. They are both three-dimensional characters, which is what I find interesting,” he said.
Sears went to Northeastern State University in Tahlequah to become an art teacher. He graduated with teaching degrees in art and theater. “But I’d always wanted to be an actor. I knew those people had fun and I wanted to have fun,” he said. He also knew that becoming an actor would require hard work. “Mom taught us that whatever you want in life, you’re going to have to work for it. You couldn’t get around June. She was very strict and instilled discipline in all of us,” he said.
Like many aspiring actors, Sears set off for New York.
“I got a call one day that I could audition for a part in New York if I could get there by 10 o’clock the next morning,” he recalled. In a story as unlikely as a fairytale, Sears jumped on an airplane, did the audition, go the part and never looked back.
“I took those qualities I learned from my family and community to New York. I knew they would make fun of people from the boonies, but everyone in New York is from somewhere else. They’ve taken the best with them from their communities to survive. I was committed to do what I had to do to succeed,” he said.
He began to hone his talents as a character actor until one day when friend and mentor Lou Gilbert came to see a show in which Sears was performing. “He said I was a good character actor but I would spin my wheels playing character actors. He told me to go to the regional theaters and study my craft. So I went to Texas,” he said.
The original Greater Tuna debuted in Austin, Texas in 1982, where it had its roots in a skit created for a friend’s party. The actors drew on their intimate knowledge of small Western towns to put together a “broadcast” from the reactionary conservative Panhandle radio station OKKK set in fictitious Tuna, “the third smallest town in Texas.”
The skit was so popular that they decided to develop it into a play. Friend Ed Howard collaborated on the script, directed the two actors and committed his entire savings of $10,000 to finance the production.
The audience and press response to Greater Tuna was overwhelming. Within six months, the two-man show was booked into Connecticut and New York and just over a year later, Greater Tuna was playing off-Broadway, where it ran for a year. From there the actors appeared on the David Letterman and Merv Griffin talk shows, starred in their own HBO special for Norman Lear, and performed twice at the White House by invitation of the elder President George Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush.
“To think I’ve changed from pants to panty hose under Ben Franklin’s portrait in the Green Room,” he exclaimed. “The ladies of Tuna were ‘lost’ on a tour of the White House. There was one scene where we rigged up a ‘crash box.’ Mrs. Bush thought we had broken the Dolly Madison tea set,” he said, laughing.
By 1985, Greater Tuna was the most-produced play in the United States. It holds the record as the longest-running professional comedy in San Francisco.
Greater Tuna was followed by the 1989 sequel, A Tuna Christmas, which played on Broadway and earned Sears a 1995 Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play.
Sears went on to win Hollywood Dramalogue Awards for Best Actor and Writer and three Helen Hayes Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Play, where a Washington Post critic declared, “Joe Sears in a dress is one of the American theater’s national living treasures.”
In 1998, Red, White and Tuna debuted as the final act in the Tuna trilogy. Sears and Williams had been touring the better part of 17 years in more than 4,000 Tuna productions crossing the United States, including performances at the American Spoleto Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland. The road had taken its toll, and Sears and Williams were ready for a change.
They were finding new stages and avenues in which to express their individual talents. While Sears had turned down movie roles, he agreed to be in friend Tommy Lee Jones’ movie Good Old Boys with Matt Damon. He was writing and producing serious and comedic plays in theaters, including Willie Nelson’s movie set on his Texas ranch. Both men wanted to spend more time at their respective homes. When Sears wasn’t in Austin, he would retreat to his lodge in Wyoming to relax and paint.
“It reminded me of being back home at Woolaroc, where I would sit on the porch of the lodge and look out over that beautiful, peaceful lake. I go to Woolaroc every time I come home,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sears and Williams were still touring the Tuna plays. But the spark wasn’t there. They realized they needed to take more control. The obvious thing to do was to create a new Tuna and produce it themselves.
Tuna Does Vegas was launched in 2007. Sears, Williams and Howard got together one more time to collaborate, as the unwitting citizens of Tuna visited Sin City. But this time, the partners were having fun just like the good old days.
Sears describes Williams as his “laughing buddy.” “We’ve been through a lot together and we’re still good friends. We’ve been together longer than any professional partners in Hollywood,” he said.
Once again with Tuna Does Vegas, audiences have warmed to their old friends, in and out of character. What makes the Tuna material eternally relevant? Its political and cultural resonance still rings true in the inevitable clash between liberals and conservatives. The more times change, the more they stay the same. One character says, upon returning to Tuna after a long absence, “I don’t like the look of this.” “Why, has it changed?” asks the other. “No,” says the first character.
And what of Joe Sears, veteran actor, acclaimed playwright, teacher and painter?
And father (he adopted a son in 1987) and even has become a grandfather.
Sears plans to retire to Bartlesville in the next decade.
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on stage. Honestly, there aren’t enough hours in the day to do what I want to do,” he said.
He maintains a painting studio at this mother’s house and hopes to restore the hundred-year-old house built by Nellie Johnstone to its original look. “I’m doing an art show at the Community Center in 2009. I’m working on a series of Pathfinders paintings in preparation for the show. Jody Kirberger has offered to help me hang it,” said the artist.
He hopes to work with poet Morris McCorvey, the West Side Dust Bowl Players and Theater Bartlesville. “I want to write new works for the stage and work with groups here,” he said. “The arts are meant to be shared. That’s why we have gifts from God; to share.”
In the meantime, Sears thanks his brother Earl for holding down the fort.
“The Sears men leave, but they all come home, and one always stays behind to hold down the fort,” he said. “That’s Earl. He’s here for the community. I’ve grown and learned from the world, but I have a history and part of my history is here in Bartlesville. I want to retire here, to live and participate in the community. That’s a Sears thing.”
A Q&A with Joe Sears
By Judy Langdon
How do you come up with so many individual Tuna residents?
As actors we have to be observant. I enjoy putting together future characters, usually composites of many people but making them real and alive is a task.
Are you always considering new Tuna installments?
Yes, we constantly speak of fun Tuna shows. Consider these for titles of future shows. “Escape From Tuna”, “A Tuna Halloween”, “The Deep End”
How long does it take, from start to finish, to develop a Tuna installment?
3 months of writing.
It seems like all Tuna installments poke fun at small town life, and how everyone living in them knows everything about everybody else’s personal business. That is always so funny, but why?
Our human nature beats all. We are creatures of habit and curiosity.
Do you ever get the feeling some of your installments almost write themselves, without much thought or input?
Not really.
Would you miss doing Tuna shows if you decided to go back to playing regular theatre, such as drama?
I would probably miss the laughter, that hard and steady laughter that comes with our shows. Another play, somebody else’s creation will have a different rhythm.
I read in some of your bio material that you are a father and a grandfather. Do you ever see your son and grandchildren following in your acting footsteps?
My adoptive son is a technician in the theatre and still tours with Tuna when he can. My granddaughter was raised backstage and now attends high school where she sings in concert choir and acts in plays.
"Tuna Does Vegas," starring Joe Sears and Jaston Williams will be March 8-11.
7:30 p.m. Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center, 108 E. Third St. Call 596-7111 or 477-7469, or visit www.celebrityattractions.com or MyTicketOffice.com.
