Joe Sears

As co-author and costar of the wildly successful Tuna trilogy, Mr. Sears has been touring extensively with these productions for the past 22 years. His sixth tour of A Tuna Christmas included his Broadway debut for which he received a 1995 Tony Award-nomination for Best Actor in a Play. The first record-breaking year included a command performance for President and Mrs. George Bush at the White House. Mr. Sears' Washington, DC engagement of A Tuna Christmas earned him his third nomination for the Helen Hayes Award for Best Actor. A Tuna Christmas was also nominated for Best Play. Mr. Sears also received nominations in 1984 and 1988 for the Helen Hayes Award for his performance in Greater Tuna. He originated these roles off-Broadway when Greater Tuna premiered in 1982 and has performed in the highly successful national tours and co-wrote and starred in the Embassy Television/ Norman Lear Special of Greater Tuna which aired on HBO. Mr. Sears has been acting professionally for the past 30 years. His credits include a season with Theatre Works USA in New York, summer stock, outdoor drama, television and eight Shakespeare plays. Among his many roles are Bottom and Thisby in two separate productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the Doctor in Three Sisters. He appeared with Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes) in The Foreigner. Later he would play Fannie's role and attributes his success to her. Mr. Sears has appeared on the David Letterman and Merv Griffin shows and received a Los Angeles Dramalogue Award for his writing and performance of Greater Tuna. Mr. Sears received the 1993 Los Angeles Dramalogue Award for Best Actor in A Tuna Christmas. He performed in the musical comedy The Fantasticks at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC and at Casa Mañana Theatre in Fort Worth. He made his movie debut with Tommy Lee Jones and Matt Damon in The Good Old Boys. Mr. Sears is the playwright for the Cherokee Nation's outdoor drama Trail of Tears, which runs during the summer months in Tahlequah, OK. Mr. Sears was awarded the "Theatre LA Ovation Award" for Best Actor 1999. He recently completed the Libretto (along with Mr. Williams) for the new Comic Opera Ochelata's Wedding commissioned by the OK Mozart International Music Festival. He and Austin-Nashville songwriter Kimmie Rhodes are now working on a new musical entitled Doin' God's Chores, an Austin workshop production. Mr. Sears also owns and operates Cody Stage, a summer stock theatre company in Cody, WY.