South Carolina native Ted Swindley is a Southern gentleman of the theater. In Texas, he founded Houston's Stages Repertory Theatre and directed musicals, classics and original plays. Then in 1988, on an instinct, he conceived Always ... Patsy Cline, a live theatrical portrait of the country great that incorporates her hit songs into an insightful look into her personal life as shared with a devoted fan. The show wowed local audiences, then took off nationally like a house afire.
"I was not a country music fan," says Swindley. "Look at my résumé — I was a serious regional theater guy, doing avant-garde stuff, new play development, weird takes on the classics. This country music thing was a total fluke. People think I'm an authority on Patsy Cline. I didn't even know who she was when I wrote the show. I had to educate myself."
It was five years later — when Always ... Patsy Cline received its first staging at the Ryman Auditorium — that Swindley moved to Nashville. "That was an important booking for the show," he says. "So I ended up living here through 1999, doing some directing at Opryland and traveling around a lot doing out-of-town shows."
Soon thereafter, Swindley moved to New York City, where he became involved with the Actors Studio and hit the play-reading circuit. But he eventually tired of the city and returned to Nashville in 2007, where he's more recently spent his time mounting a Southern-fried adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest, produced in conjunction with the Nashville Shakespeare Festival; a reading of Becoming Kinky, his dramatization of the life and works of gadfly Texas musician, author and politico Kinky Friedman; his own version of James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones, produced in February at Christ Church Cathedral; and, soon to debut at the Country Music Hall of Fame, One Kiss Café, an original musical by local songwriter Parrish Stanton, which Swindley has taken a hand in nurturing through revisions.
"One of the attractive things about Nashville is its creative vibe," says Swindley, a dapper, quiet-spoken but charmingly articulate guy. "That largely comes from the music industry, but I think that kind of sloshes over to other arts as well. Obviously, it's a place that is open to artistic expression and creative endeavors."
Among his goals, Swindley aims to encourage songwriters to work in the musical theater form. "I think there needs to be a bridge to fill the gap between the creative songwriting energy in this town — to convince songwriters that the musical theater form would be an interesting way for them to go with some of their material."
As a full-time playwright and director, Swindley's an anomaly — but a no less noteworthy addition to the local arts scene. "I don't want to be known just for Always ... Patsy Cline," he says. "I want people to know that I'm a serious theater person, that I have an extensive directing background and that I'd like to see some of my non-country plays done around town."
Meanwhile, he recently got himself a dog. "Now that's a serious commitment to Nashville," he rightfully concludes. —MARTIN BRADY
Photographed by Eric England at The Global Community Center.
