I Saw the Lights

Austin favorite Jaston Williams of Greater Tuna fame is back with a new darkly funny solo performance!

When mysterious lights appeared over Lubbock, Texas in 1951, people wondered aloud whether they were part of some government plot, an invasion by the Russians or just seeing space aliens out to abduct Francine Whitharrel’s Persian cat. In I Saw The Lights, you will hear from the preacher with too much sense of humor (even for a Methodist), the hippie whose girlfriend longs to become a Comanche, a socialite from Connecticut who holds grudges against trees, and the cowboy with a chronic fear of water. All in all, nine variant souls are drawn together by the inexplicable and are forever bonded through their humanity and humor.

BUY TICKETS HERE:

Virtual Event Tickets: $25 (not sold through Eisemann Center Ticket Office)

VIP Tickets: $35 include access to a Post Show interview and Q&A (not sold through Eisemann Center Ticket Office)

Jaston Williams is the author and co- actor of the two person Greater Tuna plays, Greater
Tuna, A Tuna Christmas, Red, White and Tuna and Tuna Does Vegas, all four of which
played across the U.S. for over thirty years, with stops off and on Broadway and in such
venues as the Kennedy Center, Ford’s Theatre, The Alley Theatre in Houston, Pasadena
Playhouse in L.A., American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, The American
Spoleto Festival and as an official American entry to the Edinburgh Festival, as well as
two command performances at the White House, (back in the time when such a thing was
an honor).

He also wrote the screenplay and performed in the Norman Lear H.B.O. version of
Greater Tuna. The Tuna plays are still among the most produced scripts in America
offered in the Samuel French catalogue and A Tuna Christmas was chosen for inclusion
in Best Plays of 1995. In a forty-year career, he has performed in plays running the gamut
from the avant-garde works of Eugène Ionesco to the joy of musical comedy.

For his recent solo work, Jaston was recently awarded the national Marquee Award for
Outstanding Contribution to Historical Theatres. He is a seven-time nominee for the
prestigious Helen Hayes Award, which recognizes and celebrates excellence in
professional theatre; a recipient of the L.A. Drama-Logue Award, and the San Francisco
Bay Area Critics Award. He has also received the Texas Governor’s Award for
Contribution to the Arts in Texas, and the Texas Medal of The Arts. He holds an
Outstanding Alumnus Award from Texas Tech University, where he is guest lecturer on
the subject of playwriting.

Jaston’s post-Tuna career has featured a number of original performance pieces
presented coast to coast and which range in subject matter from his father’s nervous
breakdown the night the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan, to escaping down a rumbling
Guatemalan volcano while being pursued by armed kidnappers, to showing up at a 1970s
Renaissance Fair, held at Dennis Hopper’s house, while wearing a chicken suit and
passing himself off as Michelangelo. It’s been every kind of life but boring.

Jaston lives in Lockhart, Texas, which is well within the Austin sphere of influence, with
his husband, Kevin, and their son, Song.