Employee
profile
Jay Oney
The
Hollingsworth gift
A contributed column by President David Shi
The
Furman Forum
What do you feel should be some of Furman's top priorities with the Hollingsworth
bequest?
Faculty/Staff
news
Professional activities
Milestones
New employees, promotions and anniversaries
Around
Campus
News from university departments
Inside Furman is published monthly during the school year by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
A journeyman actor turned professor
As the new kid in town, Jay Oney, a 16-year-old Wade Hampton High School student, was trying to make new friends when his parents casually remarked: "Hey, Jay why don't you take a theatre class and act in a play?"
The tiny suggestion, opined by his mother just weeks after the Oney family had moved to Greenville from Ohio, sparked a 30-year career in drama. Later, when Oney was a struggling, road-weary actor and waiting tables to make ends meet, his parents could never tell him to settle down and find a real job because "they were the ones who suggested it in the first place," laughs the 44-year-old.
Oney's first role was as Mr. Gibbs in the Wade Hampton High School 1972 production of "Poison, Arsenic and Old Lace." The junior had eight lines. Despite the miniature role, Oney knew he had found a home on the stage.
"I guess I have always been intrigued with the notion of trying to convince someone that you are someone else," he says.
In addition to participating in high school plays, Oney often attended productions of the Furman Drama Department (now Theatre Arts). When he enrolled at the university in 1974, Oney naturally fell in with the theatre crowd and had a role in about a dozen productions during his student days at Furman.
In 1980, Oney received a master's degree in theatre from Penn State University and entered the hard, cruel world of show businesses. For the next several years he led a nomadic-like life moving from production to production in Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and New York.
Like most new actors, he also did his fair share of waiting tables. It was an exciting, sometimes exhilarating part of Oney's life as he saw different parts of the country, met other actors and performed in dozens of plays. But the "big break" that he hoped would lead to acting notoriety never came (though he did appear as an extra in the soap opera "One Life to Live").
"There's just a lot of hustle, self promotion and luck that goes with acting," he says. "I guess I never got that lucky break that you always hear about successful actors getting."
In 1987, Oney found himself living in a New York City studio apartment, waiting tables at night, acting during the day and sleeping about five hours in between. Life as a struggling actor had lost its glamour. Oney, who had just turned 30, did some soul-searching.
"I knew that I just had to get on with my life," he says. "I have always been interested in the academic side of theatre so that's what I pursued."
The next year, Oney enrolled at Ohio State. While completing coursework for a doctorate in theatre, he taught classes, performed some and met his future wife, Carol Sutton, who was also studying theatre. In 1993, after spending a year overseas teaching English as a second language to Japanese elementary school children, the couple moved to Greenville where Jay began working as an adjunct professor at Furman. He was also the technical director for the Theatre on the Green 1994 production of "Tom Sawyer" and an artist-in-residence at Spartanburg School District Five.
In 1996, he was promoted to assistant professor at Furman and is now a full-time member of the faculty. Carol is a drama instructor at Byrnes High School.
Rhett Bryson, who taught Oney as a Furman student, says Oney has an "unbridled enthusiasm and keen sense for what's funny" that is reflected in his work on stage and in the classroom. "He has a real easy-going personality with just the right amount of humor and seriousness. He creates a marvelously welcoming atmosphere for students," says Bryson.
Although Oney has embraced his new role as educator and part-time performer (he won rave reviews recently for his role as Elwood P. Dowd in the Furman Theatre production of "Harvey"), he does admit to sometimes pining for those days on the big stage.
Life as full-time actor, he says, can be exciting and intellectually intoxicating. But the highs are high and the lows are low. "There are a lot of dry spells, " he says smiling. "I don't miss it a whole lot, but I miss it sometimes."
At home on the stage
Jay Oney earned rave reviews recently for his role as the unassuming and humorous Elwood P. Dowd in the Furman Theatre production of "Harvey"