My latest interview is with Wes Phinney of Dalton. For years, he’s been involved in theatre on stage and off stage as a drama teacher, which he has retired from recently. His passion and love of theatre are shown in each performance.
Wes met his lovely wife, Jennifer, through theatre. He talks about that in our chat here, so you must read on to see which theatre they met at and which play they were in. They both are performing in Hamlet with Conasauga Shakespeare Coalition, and I enjoyed their performances along with the entire cast this past Saturday.
Introducing Wes…
What do you love about your life right now?
That’s easy: my eight-month-old granddaughter, Harper Jane Southerland. My wife and I get to keep her 2-3 days a week, and I’m loving every minute of watching her grow- seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, watching her learn to crawl and wave and say “Bye”. I think being a grandparent is a second chance at truly enjoying being present for the absolutely incredible wonders of childhood. Not that I didn’t enjoy watching my daughters grow up, but I was young and partially focused on my job and my career (as we all are). I mean, I didn’t miss anything, but I didn’t exactly appreciate the little things like I can now that I’m retired and free to focus all my attention and energies on this wonderful little human being whenever we’re together.
I’m currently working on writing a song for her (with my songwriting partner and friend Ward Satterfield) that (hopefully) expresses some of these feelings. We’ll see…
I’ve seen you perform in so many plays through the years, and your talent as an actor is inspiring for many in the community. One of my favorite performances is when you and your wife, Jennifer, performed in Love Letters, which was directed by Susan Ridley at Dalton Little Theatre (DLT). I also enjoyed your performance in Book of Will, directed by Chase Parker at Artistic Civic Theatre (ACT). Was there a particular play or actor that inspired you to become one?
First of all, thank you for remembering and appreciating those performances- especially Book of Will, which was one of my favorites. But there wasn’t a play or actor that inspired me as much as a series of events and people that I met as a young man…
Growing up, I used to sing and dance for my family (I allegedly performed songs from Mary Poppins– there are old reel-to-reel family films somewhere), and I eventually became the Director/Author of the annual family Christmas Eve Pageant/Play that included all of my cousins performing for my entire family at my grandmother’s house in Bainbridge, Georgia.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I wanted to be a baseball player, but (like most young boys), I really just wanted to meet girls. A very sweet chorus teacher recruited me (along with the fact that a girl I had a crush on was in chorus) to join my school’s chorus. Part of being in chorus was the requirement that we audition for the annual Musical Revue production. Our 1978 production was called American Jukebox, and I was cast to sing a solo in the first part of the show (which was dedicated to songs of the fifties). The song was called “Teen Angel,” and the morning after our first performance, there were several girls waiting for me at my locker. I remember walking with them to class and thinking (in my hormonally charged adolescent male brain) “Wow! There’s something truly magical about this stage stuff.”
Anyway, I stuck with it in order to meet girls, and in the spring of my senior year, I was cast as Curly in Oklahoma! After one of the performances, I was congratulated by a representative from Auburn University- Marilyn Powel, who persuaded me to audition for a spot in the Theatre Department, and the rest is history…
I really had no intention of doing this for a living. I was set to attend Mercer and pursue a career in law, but when I won a scholarship to Auburn, even my parents began to think that “Wow! There’s something truly magical about this stage stuff,” and I was set on my path. Marilyn became my mentor and ignited what became my lifelong love of theatre.
Long story short (I know-too late!), I have been truly blessed to spend the best years of life working in the theatre: as a student at Auburn, as a volunteer at the DLT, as the Managing Director at ACT, as a Drama teacher and Director at Dalton High School, as a co-founder of the Conasauga Shakespeare Coalition, etc., etc.
Partly because of those girls waiting at my locker, but mostly because of wonderful mentors and teachers like Marilyn Powel, I ultimately found a second home in the theatre. In this second home, I met so many wonderful friends and fellow theatre lovers (including my wife of nearly thirty-four-years!), and I got to share my love of the art form with my community, with my daughters (all of whom are pursuing careers in the theatre) and with my students. All of these experiences have helped make my life a wonderfully memorable adventure.
Do you have a favorite play or role that you performed? I imagine you might have more than one.
You’re absolutely right. But Maria, you should know better than to ask an old actor to list his favorite roles! However, in the interest of time (and readers nodding off), I’ll mention just a few:
I truly enjoy working with my daughters. They are extremely talented, and they do not let me get away with anything. However, I do believe that they enjoy casting me in the role of a bitter and cranky older person. For example, I was cast as Lady Bracknell in the 2020 production of The Importance of Being Earnest at ACT, directed by my daughter Kate (who played the role when I directed the play at Dalton High back in 2016); and, last fall, I was cast as Mr. Laurence in the ACT production of Little Women, directed by my youngest daughter Meg. I relished both of these roles as opportunities to work with my daughters, but I truly suspect that I was “typecast”. As additional evidence of this assertion, Kate cast me as Mr. Banks in last summer’s ACT production of Mary Poppins. While the show was a sort of “full circle” moment for me (having performed songs from the show ever since I was able to walk and talk), Mr. Banks was yet another cranky old person role!
One of my favorite DLT performances was playing Paul Bratter opposite my wife (then my fiancé) in a 1990 Dinner Theatre production of Barefoot in the Park (yet another local production that featured Joey Parrott!). Book of Will was one of my very favorite roles (I played Shakespeare contemporary John Heminges) because it was another chance to work with my wife (and another chance to be directed by my friend Chase Parker, who also directed me and my friend Tim Etheridge in Frost/Nixon), and I enjoyed every single minute of that show. However, I was disappointed by the meager turnout for what I truly believe to be one of the best plays of the finest playwright of the twenty-first century, Lauren Gunderson. (Sorry about the brief foray onto my soapbox, but I truly wish more people had seen that show…)
Two of my very favorite Musical Theatre roles were Don Quixote in the ACT production of Man of La Mancha, directed by my friend Lori Abernathy, and the Narrator/Old Man in the ACT production of Into the Woods, directed by my friend Tim Etheridge. Part of the reason I enjoyed Into the Woods was being on stage with two of my students (at the time)- Josh Parrott and Grace Kling. I always enjoy being on stage with my students because we have a lot of fun sharing our mutual love of theatre outside of school and the classroom.
But my very favorite role was playing Henry Higgins in the ACT production of My Fair Lady. When I was a kid, we would visit my grandparents in Bainbridge every summer. I was one of three male grandchildren, but unlike my older cousin, I didn’t like fishing and hunting; and unlike my younger brother, I was not very good at golf, so I was often left behind. One afternoon, my grandmother took pity on me and entertained me by sitting me down in front of her record player to listen to her original cast albums. Needless to say, I was smitten. But not necessarily by the performances. I was fascinated by the lyrics and the music and the writers and composers that created these works of art. I was especially enamored of Lerner and Loewe and their score for My Fair Lady. From that day on, I made my parents play their copy of the album at least once a week (which they loved because it was their favorite, as well). Needless to say, we wore out that copy of the record (which I still have). As a junior in high school, I spent a summer at Jekyll Island working with the Florida State University Summer Repertory Company. One of the musicals the Company produced that summer was My Fair Lady, and performing in the show cemented my love of the score. So, being cast as Henry Higgins was a bucket list item for me. Unfortunately, my mother was bedridden with the illness that would ultimately take her life later that year, so she never got to see me in the role. However, my friend Reggie Sherrill videotaped one performance, which I played for my mother a few weeks after the show closed. One of my fondest memories is seeing her smile at me and mouth the words while she watched me singing “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”.
Finally, I’m currently working on two very challenging but rewarding roles in two plays (which just happen to be two of the most critically acclaimed plays in the history of the Theatre), and I’m sure that the powers-that-be would chastise me if I did not plug these shows: I’m playing Polonius in the upcoming Conasauga Shakespeare production of Hamlet (August 28-30 at Dalton Convention Center and September 5 and 6 at Prater’s Mill); and Willy Loman in a special ACT fall production of Death of a Salesman (October 3 and 4 at ACT and during the October 15-18 Georgia Theatre Conference in Macon).
What are some challenges and joys of being an actor?
When I first decided to accept my scholarship and attend Auburn University as a Theatre Major, I remember my mother defending my decision to our skeptical family members and our nosy neighbors by saying “Some sons will go to college and become a lawyer, and others will go to college and become a doctor, and that’s all very well and good. But my son will go to college and get to ‘play’ a lawyer or a doctor, or whatever he wants to be.” In her own special way, my mother hit on one of the great joys of acting: pretending to be another person in a different set of circumstances (or a different occupation), which is fundamentally a lot of fun! In fact, pretending by using the imagination is one of the first things we do as human beings. It’s a primal urge in all of us. Have you ever watched a child pretend with nothing more than a stick? Talk about joy! It’s not so much losing yourself or escaping your reality (although that is a part of it for some people)- it’s just fun.
In my very first class at Auburn, my professor (Marilyn Powel) began the class by saying, “An actor’s library is the world.” I’ve always loved that because I love learning. I love looking for answers (which is one reason I have a Masters Degree in History). While acting is fun, it is also hard work because if you are going to pretend believably (that is, if you are going to convince the audience that you are who you are pretending to be- which is the goal of every actor), you have to understand the character you are portraying. Sometimes, that takes a lot of work- research (reading, observing, etc.), physical work, vocal work, etc. because sometimes the character you are pretending to be is nothing at all like you or like anyone you’ve ever known! And that can be very challenging- but it can also be very fun.
Finally, I love acting (and I loved teaching acting) because it teaches empathy. As an actor, you try to convincingly pretend to be another person, which often requires you to “walk in another person’s shoes,” so to speak, which can sometimes require research into different beliefs, traditions, etc. This can sometimes lead us to a greater understanding of and empathy for others, especially those who are different from us. I truly believe that when we learn to better understand and empathize with those who don’t necessarily share our beliefs or traditions, we become better people.
But as I get older, the greatest challenge is remembering lines and lyrics (see the answer to the next question) and blocking.
I’ve acted on stage myself, and sometimes learning the lines can be difficult. As a retired drama teacher and actor, what advice can you give or what method can you recommend for learning lines? Is there a special trick?
Funny you should ask, because at the ACT “Berry Awards” last Saturday, I “went up” on (forgot during a performance) the lyrics to a song from Little Women. I had performed the song (“Off to Massachusetts” with Dezirea Beavers as Beth March) without incident during the run of the show last fall, and we had rehearsed the number the night before the performance at the awards presentation, but for some reason- age, fatigue (I had just finished the first off-book rehearsal for Hamlet earlier that day and had all of my lines from “Hamlet” lingering in my head), or just coincidence (I had reviewed your questions that morning and this one caught my eye!)- I blanked. Dezirea kept going, but the audience was enjoying my stammering nonsense syllables in place of the words that simply would not come to mind (even though I had reviewed them before I left the house for the theater), so I’m not sure that her perseverance was truly appreciated.
I am a stickler for trying to get every single word correct because I have a great respect for playwrights and I know how hard they sometimes work to find just the right word- especially playwrights like Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and Neil Simon (You have to get Simon’s words exactly right because the comic timing of the line depends on each and every word). I’m not aware of a “trick” for memorizing lines. In fact, I would be skeptical of anyone who offered a “trick”. The only way I know to memorize lines is to repeat them over and over until they become embedded in your subconscious. Once you do this, you find that anytime you say the line incorrectly, something in your brain tells you “That’s not right,” and then you go back to the script to find out what you missed. This system is especially useful when memorizing Shakespeare, because when you get Shakespeare’s words wrong, you definitely know it.
You are part of the cast of Death of a Salesman at ACT and will be performing at the Georgia Theatre Conference in October this year. How excited are you to be part of the cast as Willy Loman and to perform at the conference?
Honestly, I’m a bit nervous. Willy Loman is one of those bucket list iconic roles for an actor, and Death of a Salesman is one of those plays you read about, but never really imagine you’ll get to be a part of. I remember writing a paper about the play in college. There are so many talented actors in the cast (several of whom I have never worked with before- so that is very exciting). I only hope that my portrayal of Willy can help the production, can benefit the other cast members, and is everything that Carlton (Thomas) and Rob (Thompson), our directors, want and need it to be.
Do you ever become nervous before a performance, and if so, how do you overcome that?
Like I said, I’m already nervous about Willy Loman, so the answer is definitely yes.
For me, I think the only way to overcome nervousness is to focus on what part you play in telling the story that is being told to the audience. Every role, big and small, leading role and ensemble member, plays a part in telling the story convincingly to the audience. If I don’t do my part correctly, it makes it difficult for others to do theirs, etc., etc., so when I get nervous, I try to think about how important I am to the story being told rather than how nervous I am about performing.
In life, we deal with failure, and it’s part of everyone’s journey at some point in their lives. I believe failure is a chance for us to grow and become stronger. Do you have a favorite failure?
Oh, I have numerous favorite failures! As the father of three daughters, I have a long list of failures that thankfully have not cost me too much, but have- I believe- made me a better parent (and grandparent).
My most recent failure was the last One-Act Competition Play I chose to direct at Dalton High in 2023. Rather than listen to my friend and co-director Alana Sane, I chose to (for the third time!) direct a one-act production of the musical Pippin. Alana wanted to do a musical version of Twelfth Night, which I liked very much and should have done. But, having had three straight years of very successful One-Act Competitions, and knowing that this would be my last Dalton High One-Act, my ego took over and kept me awake at night saying “Even though you’ve done Pippin twice before and it didn’t do as well as you thought it would, this time with these kids will be different,” and “Don’t worry about that unexplainable ‘Finale’, you’ll figure it out!” Well, needless to say, I didn’t figure out the “Finale,” and my stupid ego ultimately cost my students a good showing at the competition and perhaps the chance to perform at Thespians Conference. I did, however, learn from that failure: I learned to recognize the voice of my ego and to disregard everything it says.
Alright, Wes, this is one of my favorite parts of the chat. Tell me three fun facts about yourself.
My favorite story about myself is how I met my wife, Jennifer, in the Dalton Little Theatre production of The Sound of Music. She was Maria, and I was Captain Von Trapp. And Amanda Brown (then Amanda Michaels) played Gretl! We got married the next year and have been married ever since- thirty-four years this November. And we are the godparents of Chris and Amanda Brown’s daughter, Georgia!
I am a lifelong fan of the works of Stephen Sondheim, whom I actually met at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, I was so in awe of meeting him that I could not (literally!) speak. Fortunately, Jennifer was with me and spoke for me, telling him how much I admired him and getting him to sign my program.
One of my proudest accomplishments (aside from my daughters) is the completion of my theatre degree at Auburn in 2013. I changed majors in 1984 and graduated with a political science degree. When I took the drama teaching job at Dalton High, my principal, Debbie Freeman, and I came up with a plan for certifying me as a teacher. Part of that plan was finishing my theatre degree as an example to students who might consider pursuing a theatre degree. On a whim, I contacted Auburn and discovered that I was only two credits shy of a degree (!). After completing an Advanced Theatre History class online, the only remaining credit was a dance class, which had to be attended in person. So, against my better judgement, I spent the better part of the summer of 2013 in a Dance class at Auburn University, where I was a fifty-year-old non-dancer old man struggling to keep up with kids less than half his age. But despite aching muscles and strained old bones throughout my entire body that made it painful to walk to and from class, I finished the class and completed my degree!
If possible, describe yourself in one word.
I’d have to say collaborative. One of the many reasons I love the theatre is the collaborative nature of the work. I have worked and get to work with many talented creatives in the theatre: artists, dancers, musicians, singers, actors, designers, technicians, writers, etc., etc. I am happiest when I’m working with another artist toward a common goal: the telling of a great story through live theatre!
Who are your biggest supporters?
My parents, may they rest in peace, were always unconditionally supportive of me. They always told me, “No matter what happens, we’re still going to love you.” I used to tell my students that before each performance.
My in-laws, Rick and Sandy Martin, were (and are) very supportive. Along with hundreds of friends and supporters, the three of us worked very long and hard to create the Artistic Civic Theatre back in the early 1990s. You would not be interviewing me were it not for Rick and Sandy Martin.
My wife and my daughters are very supportive of me. My wife is my best editor and my best critic- she keeps me grounded, she’s honest, and she’s patient to a fault, but she does have her limits. When I was writing A Christmas Carol with my friend Ward Satterfield, she was very patient when I read each and every line and lyric I had written. But I specifically remember her listening to a lengthy lyric or scene and saying rather impatiently, “Yes, Wes, that’s great. Did you take out the garbage?”
My daughters are very supportive, but we’ve taught them to have and express their own opinions, which they do, and sometimes they can be brutally honest in their critiques (they warned me against doing Pippin a third time), but their opinions usually come from love and admiration (at least that’s what I tell myself!)
I love ending my interviews with a motivational quote. Do you have a favorite one you would like to share?
One of my favorite quotes is one I heard at my first Dalton High graduation in 2009. It inspired me to finish my theatre degree at Auburn.
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” George Eliot.
Thank you for reading my interview with Wes. His vast amount of acting and teaching show up in each performance.
To learn more about ACT, please click here.
You should go see Hamlet, and it’s on for one more weekend (September 5th and 6th). Link here to buy tickets.
To learn more about Wes, see below for a bio.