Dan Winston, ’10, sits in the Vukovich Center for Communication Arts, reflecting on his whirlwind year of performances. 

“In August and September, I played Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption up in Erie. That was a very emotionally taxing role,” Winston said. “And a couple months ago I played a role in Goldengrove, written by former Allegheny professor Ben Slote. It was an incredible play, but also very emotionally up and down.” 

Winston’s 2024-2025 season included seven diverse roles: 

• April 2024: “Vita Fabulas” at the Meadville Community Theatre (MCT) 
• June : “Chaos at the Wedding” (MCT) 
• September: “The Shawshank Redemption” at the Erie Playhouse 
• October: “An Afternoon of Crankies” at Playshop Theatre and “The Rocky Horror Show” at the Academy Theatre 
• December: “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory” at the Academy Theatre
• February 2025: “Goldengrove” (MCT) 
• April: “The Producers” at the Academy Theatre

Beth Watkins, Winston’s longtime collaborator and former Allegheny theater director, described the qualities that make Dan a “wonderful actor.”

“He has a tremendous musical ability. In addition to singing he plays the guitar and the harmonica,” Watkins said. “But I think his greatest gift, especially to devising, is his ability with physical movement.”

This physicality connects directly to Winstons teaching. 

“I’m a very physical actor, mostly thanks to the acting training I got here at Allegheny,” Winston said. “So it’s exhausting physically, exhausting mentally, having to remember lines and blocking and all that, especially if it’s an emotionally taxing role.” 

In the classroom, Winston applies similar principles. 

“My goal is to get them to understand it enough that they can do it without me giving them any information,” he says of his teaching philosophy. This approach mirrors how he prepared for roles,avoiding film adaptations to create original interpretations. “I always try to avoid watching any film adaptation. I always try to avoid listening to anything like the Broadway cast recording or anything, because I don’t wanna just do an impersonation.” 

Ben Slote, the playwright of Goldengrove and former English professor at Allegheny, notices this authenticity in Winstons performance. 

“I was really impressed with how quickly he learned his lines. I mean it’s kind of scary. He’s got a sort of a steel trap mind,” Slote said.. “He really did also a lot of sort of what you could call imaginative work, where he is entering into the character and dramatizing emotion and shifts in mood and how to move his body.”

The parallels between Winston’s teaching and acting continue in his creative process. 

“My lesson plans are 98% just questions that I want to ask,” Winston said. “Sometimes kids answer questions the way that I would expect them to and the way that I would, and a lot of times they dont. And those are always more fun where I go, ‘Oh. That’s what that line meant. Why? Why do you think that character did that?’” 

Watkins sees this inquisitive nature in Winston’s acting as well. 

“He’s very dramatic when he needs to be, but he’s also a great listener on stage. He’s in open conversation with his scene partners and the audience,” Watkins said. 

Winstons confirms this. 

“When I talk to you in a scene, I’m talking to you through the audience,” he said. “And when I listen to you, I’m listening to what you say via what the audience is hearing.”

Perhaps the most striking connection between Winston’s two careers is his commitment to fundamentals. 

“I try never to just tell a kid like, no , this is what it is,” Winston said. “I feel like that’s telling, and I’m not a teller.”

Similarly, in acting, he avoids simply recreating famous performances. For his role as Willy Wonka, a lifelong dream, he went back to the original text. 

“The very first thing I did was go online and buy a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl,” Winston said, ”because I’d never read it.”

Slote notes how Winston’s teaching informs his acting. 

“He’s a teacher anyway, and he was an Allegheny student, and he got to play the role of a teacher at a liberal arts school,” Slote said. “It’s like taking a step into a pair of shoes, for example, there’s a scene in the play where he’s having an independent study, and they’re talking about a poem , and he got to do some teaching, acting, and getting to teach when he’s actually a real teacher.” 

As Winston prepares for his next role, he reflects on what drives him in both professions.

“It’s simultaneously exhilarating and thrilling, and you know creatively satisfying, while also being very exhausting,” Winston said. “But at the same time, it’s not me, Dan, who’s going through all of that. It’s somebody else, right? And so it’s also a little bit of an emotional and mental vacation for me when I’m playing a role.” 

Weather in the classroom or on stage, Winston remains committed to authentic connections — teaching students to think for themselves and bringing truthful characters to life for audiences.