A troubadour, a teacher
April 13, 2009
A musician who learned his trade from country superstar Conway Twitty is teaching at Lesley College these days, working with undergraduates to write ballads and wearing multiple hats in the April 16-19 production of The Merchant of Venice.
Dr. Terry Chance performs March 31 with Lesley College sophomore Sheylan Anderson.
Terry Michael Chance, guitarist, singer, Ph.D. and, arguably, cowboy, spent nearly 20 years on the road backing up country music superstar Conway Twitty, he of “Hello Darlin’” fame. Chance, now 52, dated Twitty’s daughter as an adolescent, played guitar at the superstar’s house after school and was there in Branson, Mo. when Twitty died suddenly of an abdominal aneurysm in 1993.
Chance also stood on stage behind many artists, such as: Johnny Cash, Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, and - once - Elvis Presley.
“I grew up a cowboy life. All my family are cowboys,” Chance, a native Texan who came of age in Oklahoma, said last month while relaxing front row in an empty Marran Theater on the Lesley University campus. “But I was the one in the family who was one shade different.”
Chance quit touring after Twitty’s death, although he continues to sing gospel and appear as a balladeer on special occasions. He left Branson, where he had been playing for Roy Clark and Mickey Gilley, to earn a B.A. and an M.A. in Theater Arts in Oklahoma. In 2007 he received his Ph.D. in fine arts from Texas Tech University.
He first came to Lesley on an invite from Lesley College professor Anne Pluto, who he met at a 2006 theatre conference in Chicago. Pluto invited Chance to be the guest artist at Lesley in spring 2007 as the composer and music director of The Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas: “shore know how to git a man down”, an experience he turned into his Ph.D. dissertation.
Chance returned to Lesley in spring of last year on the Paul A. Kaplan Visiting Artist Fellowship to teach and work as composer and music director on Measure for Measure. This year he continues the fellowship to work on The Merchant of Venice and teaches a class entitled Writing Ballads for Personal Expression.
“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t use something that I learned on the road,” Chance said. “That experience I’ve been able to apply to theater and it has been a wonderful marriage.”
For The Merchant of Venice, he needed it all. As music director he arranged, composed and directed the ensemble, as well as choreographed the musical scenes. As technical director, his responsiblities included lighting, set design and overseeing the construction and backstage crew. Chance also gave a Stanislavski acting workshop at the beginning rehearsals.
“Lesley is a place that I am able to take everything I have learned from day one of playing the guitar to the day I received my Ph.D.,” Chance said. “I can use the whole ball of wax.”
In addition to the show, he has the ballads class, where he encourages students to examine emotional moments in their lives and work them into song. Coming into the class, student experiences ranged from complete musical training to no skills at all. Students in the class presented ballads they wrote as part of the March 31 A Community of Scholars event.
“What Terry really emphasized from day one was feel this music and remember it for the rest of your life, make it your own, you know?” said Nick Lenderking, a Lesley College freshman, who performed a lullaby he wrote. “I have on my notes written right here: ‘Feel it, baby!’”
As undergraduates, most of Chance’s students don’t know who Conway Twitty was. The megastar’s last number one hit was “Desperado Love,” released in 1986 when today’s traditional college senior was not yet born.
But Chance considers his mentor when he teaches. The man he considers a second father never begrudged him the opportunity to do what he wanted to do.
“If I’m anything, I want to be a word of encouragement,” Chance said. “That your dreams are possible. My dream was not playing in front of all of those people. I’m living my dream right now.”