07/26/2026
We’re just days away from the opening of Oh! What A Lovely Racket and we’d like to take this opportunity to share a little bit more about the subject of our play, Skipper Joe Tucker.
🎟️ Tickets available here: https://tinyurl.com/Racket-Tickets
🎭 WHO WAS SKIPPER JOE TUCKER? 🎭
Arthur Joseph Tucker was born June 18, 1896 in Buttonhole Cove. By 1911, his family had moved to Mansfield’s Point where he met Sarah Jane “Janie” Butler, whom he would marry and build a family with.
Always a man of business, Joe worked as a fisherman and operated a successful sawmill, selling logs to St. John’s firms building beautiful schooners.
He and Janie eventually moved their house across the harbour to King’s Point where he opened Tucker’s Restaurant, now the site of Skipper Joe’s Souvenirs.
🎭 WHAT WAS TUCKER’S RESTAURANT? 🎭
Hardly anybody called it Tucker’s Restaurant, which makes sense; it was so much more than a diner. It was a general store selling everything from candy to hardware to bolts of fabric. He’d host bands and dances, card games and movies when the new reels came in off the coastal boat. Perhaps most surprising, he ran a taxicab depot out of that location with cars and drivers. And Joe didn’t even have a drivers’ license!
Tucker’s was a place where people would gather and Joe would hold court, spinning yarns so tall they’d threaten to topple over. Joe had a reputation of being “king of the liars” and never let a fib get in the way of a good story.
🎭 WHAT IS THE PLAY ABOUT? 🎭
But Joe was less a liar and more a master storyteller with the ability to spin fantastic tales. In Oh! What A Lovely Racket we encounter an older Joe. A man on the verge of retirement, grappling with an indomitable will to keep going as he feels the weight of the years begging him to slow down.
That being said, we see him at the height of his storytelling abilities and Oh! What A Lovely Racket is a play full of music and comedy wrapped around a story full of heart. Featuring a live band with toe-tapping traditional tunes this play celebrates the life he and Janie lived and the legacy they’ve left behind.
🎟️ And for tickets to all our productions: https://linktr.ee/kptheatreproject
Professional Theatre in Scenic Green Bay.
