Gina Scott/Winonan
To wrap up the fall semester, the department of theatre & dance at Winona State University will present “A Tuna Christmas,” written by Jason Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard. “A Tuna Christmas” is a comedic play following the town of Tuna, Texas and the shenanigans that surround their annual christmas yard display contest.
In contrast to “Elephant’s Graveyard,” which had a more somber plot, “A Tuna Christmas” is bound to get students in the holiday spirit.
Heather Williams-Williams, the director of this production, said she is excited for this special production.
“We haven’t done a holiday show for a while,” Williams-Williams said. “‘A Tuna Christmas’ is very much a silly comedy with only two actors playing 10 roles a piece. We thought that’d be a good balance to the other shows in our season.”
The two actors playing all of these characters are Brad Krieger and Adam Calcagno, both seniors at Winona State. Being the only people on stage for the full two-hour show, they face new challenges and experiences as actors.
“[‘A Tuna Christmas’] is really a challenge for actors because they have to switch characters in about two seconds,” Williams-Williams said. “Some of the costume changes are literally only 10 seconds long so they go from being one character to the other very quickly.”
The switches between the different characters are not easy ones, both physically and mentally. During some transitions, the actors must switch to the opposite gender and to varied ages. Not only do they have to change costumes on a dime, they must think about how this new character speaks and acts.
To coach her actors for these transitions, Williams-Williams provided her actors with “character worksheets.” The worksheets dissect each character in the play down to their specific details including the characters’ goals, physicality and emotions.
“The actors can get a sense of who the person is before they even start on the script,” Williams-Williams said. “They have to be invested in the world that their characters live in and invested in the situation that they’re in at the moment.”
“They helped immensely,” Krieger said, regarding the worksheets. “They were so specific and there were so many things we had to fill out for each character.”
The worksheets not only asked straightforward questions, but also abstract ones. Some questions included, “If this character were a mode of transportation, what would they be?” or “What color would this character be?”
“They took you into an out-of-the-box way of thinking,” Calcagno said. “We had to find every aspect of our character and have it solidified on paper before we even started rehearsal.”
The character worksheets helped the actors focus on their characters individually, but they continued to work hard on the transitions between the wide varieties of characters they have to play.
“It’s a really cool experience learning how to switch characters on a dime back stage,” Calcagno said. “Playing women has shown me that I can handle different kinds of characters. These are all characters I’ve never really played before on stage, even including the male roles.”
Krieger agrees that “A Tuna Christmas” has helped him grow as an actor.
“Having all of these characters to play and lines to memorize showed me how focused I have to be with these types of shows,” Krieger said.
Luckily for Calcagno and Krieger, they have acted many times together before. Not only did they act in “August: Osage County” together in spring 2015, they have also been in Winona State’s Runner Up Comedy Troupe together for more than three years.
With this previous experience working together, the two actors have great chemistry on stage.
“When I saw the cast list, I physically jumped up and down,” Calcagno said. “We get each other’s comedic timing and we both are able to play off each other pretty well.”
“A Tuna Christmas” will be performing at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 18, through Sunday, Nov. 22 in the Dorothy B. Magnus Theatre in the Winona State Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $6 for students, and can be purchased at the Winona State box office, or online at: www.WSUArtsTickets.com.
