ABOUT WAYNE S. TURNEY

Actor, Director, Playwright, educator, Wayne S. Turney is currently Associate Professor of Theatre at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania and a regular with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. .

Best known as a performer in the Midwest where he was in residence for thirteen years at the Cleveland Play House, Wayne performed in featured roles as varied as Custer and Scrooge. His favorite portrayal was Matthew (and just about everybody else) in the one-man show: Cotton Patch Gospel, which he performed with the Hotfoot Quartet.

He appeared as well with most major arts organizations in Cleveland including Amphimusic, the Cleveland Pops, the Cleveland Orchestra, The Cleveland Opera, The Cleveland Institute of Music, and most recently with The Great Lakes Theatre Festival and Actors Summit.

Veteran of countless television and radio commercials, he was seen for nearly ten years every Saturday morning in Cleveland and several other cities across the country on the highly honored children's show, HICKORY HIDEOUT, for which he served as staff writer and won an Emmy!

He has appeared at theatres all across the country as well, notably

• The Actor's Theatre of Louisville
• Detroit's famed Hilberry Repertory Theatre,
• The Woodstock Music Festival Theatre
• Portland Opera
• Michigan Opera Theatre
• Interlochen Arts Academy
• and many others.

A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University with a BA in Math and Theatre, in 1968, he accepted a commision in the United States Air Force and became a SAC pilot, graduating in Class 70-03 at Reese AFB, TX. He served as a pilot of EC-135 Airborne Command Posts with the Third Airborne Command and Control Squadron (3ACCS) for the next four years, during which time he directed a series of fund-raisers for the POW-MIA fund, won several talent contests and served as commander of Tops In Blue '72.

On separation from the service at the end of the Viet Nam Conflict, he spent three years at the famed Hilberry Repertory Theatre at Wayne State University where he earned an MFA (and PhD ABD). It was there he met his future bride, actress, now Episcopal Priest, The Rev. Harper Jane McAdoo Turney.

Since then, he has remained active in Academe. Mr. Turney has taught at the Chatauqua Institution, Wayne State University, Case-Western Reserve University, John Carroll University, Ohio Wesleyan University, and a twenty five year association with Cleveland State University including eight years full time during which time he redesigned and updated the theatre major.

He is author, translator or adaptor of 9 produced works his most recent, a musical adaptation of Dickens' A Cricket on the Hearth with a remarkable score by Sebastian Birch, which premiered last November and will re-open November 24th this year at Actors' Summit. Mr. Turney served as dramaturg at the Cleveland Play House and oversaw the New Voices/New Directions program. More than half the scripts which he gave staged readings went on to full Equity productions. He founded the Ohio New Play Festival at Lorain County Community College, and was co-founder, with his wife The Rev. Harper Jane McAdoo Turney of the Cleveland Actors Theatre Company which made its home at the Hanna Theatre.

He has maintained an active career as a director in both professional and academic theatres. He recently directed QED at Actors' Summit in Ohio and is currently staging Our Town for DeSales University's Act I program.

Mr. Turney lives in Hilltown, Pennsylvania with his wife The Rev. Harper McAdoo Turney, Priest-in-charge of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Hilltown, Pennsylvania. Their son Jamin, a cum laude graduate of John Carroll University is starting his own insurance agency and holding down the fort at the old homestead in Bratenahl, Ohio.

His professional services may be booked through the Docherty Agency (216) 522-1300. Or you may contact him directly by clicking here.