Kansas Arts on Tour Roster - Theatre

“Phillip Grecian is Phillip Grecian, and Mark Twain is Mark Twain, but the Twain do meet after more than two hours of makeup and 30 years of performances...Twain remains a favorite of both Grecian and his audiences because of Twain’s skills as a storyteller and Grecian’s ability as an actor...”
- The Topeka Capital-Journal

Philip began his career hiring out as a magician and ventriloquist at the age of four.  “Prior to that,” he says, “I was just a layabout.”
At fifteen, he became a member of Dale Easton’s long-running The Drunkard company, remaining with the show for eight years, with leaves of absences to direct, write, or appear in other productions. At 16 he wrote a three-act comedy, produced at the city’s historic Jayhawk Theatre. Shortly thereafter he founded a theatre company for the city of Topeka before moving to Lawrence, Kan. to attend Kansas University.

After a season with The Creede Repertory Theatre, a professional company in Colorado, and another season touring through four states and fifty performances as Androcles in Androcles and the Lion, Philip returned to Topeka and to the city theatre he had founded, moving the company into a renovated bath house in Gage Park, where he remained as artistic/managing director until he resigning to found The Showcase Dinner Theatre, Topeka’s first professional company.  

He has been associated with hundreds of stage productions as actor, director, writer. He has toured in his one man stage show, Mark Twain on Tour since the late 1960’s.  In 2001, he returned to the title role in Dale Easton’s The Drunkard, helping to revive the show for a new generation of theatre-goers.  

Several of his plays are published and are performed around the world, including the official stage adaptation of the MGM film, A Christmas Story, which averages 100 annual productions in the United States and Canada.        

Program Descriptions

Mark Twain on Tour, as performed by Philip Grecian, recreates a lecture presented by Mark Twain, using materials taken directly from his books, speeches and letters. Grecian has memorized several hours’ worth of Twain’s writings and varies the content of his performances as audience reaction (or whim) dictates.

Mark Twain never followed the rules of the lecture platform, refusing to stay behind the lectern for any length  of time, and wandering all over the stage, often playing the characters in the dramas he created.

He memorized his pieces, but made it a point to add stammers and hesitancies as well, so that it seemed he was speaking extemporaneously. He worked hard at timing and knew where to expect audience reaction, but often feigned surprise when it came.

It is 1906; you and your friends have gathered to be entertained by the humor and wisdomof one of America’s greatest literary artists.

“The reports of my death,” Mr. Twain is fond of saying, “are greatly exaggerated.”