"Willy Welch"@en . "He performs at hospitals, arts festivals (Montage, Kid-Around, etc.) and birthday parties, bookstores and store openings. He penned over 35 songs of the songs that \u201CBarney and Friends\u201D sing on their PBS television show. He was also a staff songwriter for the \u201CBoz the Green Bear Next Door\u201D DVD series. Mr. Willy has written and performed for (and with) thousands of children under the auspices of Arts Partners and Big Thought \u2013 leading singing with elementary children and working with them on expressing themselves through their own songs."@en . . . . . . . . . "He performs at hospitals, arts festivals (Montage, Kid-Around, etc.) and birthday parties, bookstores and store openings. He penned over 35 songs of the songs that \u201CBarney and Friends\u201D sing on their PBS television show. He was also a staff songwriter for the \u201CBoz the Green Bear Next Door\u201D DVD series. Mr. Willy has written and performed for (and with) thousands of children under the auspices of Arts Partners and Big Thought \u2013 leading singing with elementary children and working with them on expressing themselves through their own songs. Mr. Willy has an ability to see the world through a child\u2019s eyes, and the children listening and singing with him know they are with a friend! Willy often performs with his wife, the actress Wendy Welch, as the folk/gospel duo \u201CWendy & Willy\u201D at camps and churches throughout the country, as well as for Young Audiences. They have recorded three albums together. A graduate of the Boston University School for the Arts, Willy Welch has been writing and performing for many years. He is probably best known for composing \u201CPlaying Right Field,\u201D the heart-warming tale of an inept young baseball player, which has been recorded and performed by over a dozen recording artists, most notably Peter Paul & Mary, who recorded it for the third time (as a greatest hit!) in 1998 on the CD Around the Campfire. Many people are also familiar with the Right Field story as a double-Clio award-winning Pizza Hut commercial! \u201CPlaying Right Field\u201D was released as a children\u2019s picture book by Scholastic, Inc. in 1995 with illustrations by Caldecott-award winning artist Marc Simont. His second book, \u201CDancing with Daddy\u201D was a fall 1999 release from Whispering Coyote Press (an imprint of Charlesbridge Publishing), who also published \u201CGrumpy Bunnies\u201D \u2013 aka \u201CGrumbly Bunnies\u201D in March, 2000. \u201CGrumbly Bunnies\u201D was released as a paperback in 2009. Willy\u2019s other song hits include \u201CWhole Lotta Fishin\u2019,\u201D featured in the Dallas Theatre Three musical Ball Games, \u201CI\u2019m Gonna Hold Onto You,\u201D recorded by RSVP, and \u201CHouse of the Carpenter,\u201D a theme song for Habitat for Humanity. Pretending to be a grown-up, Willy wrote a rockabilly musical version of \u201CTwo Gentlemen of Verona\u201D performed by the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas. Willy has had a long and varied career as an actor. He was last seen in New York City in the Off-Broadway musical \u201CFlipside, The Patti Page Story\u201D in December, 2012 and has since periodically toured around the nation with that show. He also has a long-running gig as the King of Spain at the renowned \u201CMedieval Times Dinner & Tournament\u201D in Dallas, Texas, where he learned how to ride an Andalusian stallion! Willy recently performed as the disciple Matthew in \u201CThe Cotton Patch Gospel\u201D at Theatre Three\u2019s downstairs Theatre Too, (2015) as well as portraying General Robert E. Lee (and a number of other historical characters) in \u201CA Civil War Christmas\u201D on the Theatre Three main stage. Earlier, Willy portrayed Woody Guthrie in the musical \u201CWoody Guthrie\u2019s American Song\u201D at Theatre Too (summer, 2009). DFW Metroplex theater audiences have also seen Willy as Farmer Brown in \u201CClick Clack Moo, Cows That Type,\u201D at the Dallas Children\u2019s Theatre (Jan-Feb, 2009) and simultaneously in two Christmas musicals: \u201CThe Gifts of the Magi\u201D at PFamily Arts in Plano, and \u201CA Sanders Family Christmas\u201D for 1:30 Productions at the Bath House Cultural Center. Before that, he was FDR in \u201CAnnie\u201D at Bass Hall in Fort Worth (Dec. 2008). He was also proud to be in the world premier of the musical \u201CThe Winner\u201D at Lyric Stage (2007), as a member of an all-star cast at Watertower Theatre (Addison) for \u201CAin\u2019t Nothin\u2019 But the Blues\u201D (2004), as Wink in \u201CA Country Life,\u201D also at Watertower (2005) and the Clyde\u2019s dad and the Dallas County Sheriff in \u201CBonnie and Clyde\u201D (2014); as Jim in \u201CPump Boys and Dinettes\u201D at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas (2004), and in \u201CCotton Patch Gospel\u201D at Dallas Theater Center (2003), New Harmony Theatre in Evansville, Ind. and Casa Manana in Ft. Worth; as Uncle Stanley in \u201CSmoke on the Mountain\u201D at Granbury Opera House (2005), and as Lloyd in \u201CGuys on Ice\u201D at Circle Theatre in Ft. Worth. He also starred as the Balladeer/Proprietor in Stephen Sondheim\u2019s \u201CAssassins\u201D at Theater 3. Before he moved to Texas, New York and Boston audiences saw him in dozens of productions, including \u201CDracula,\u201D the title character in \u201CThe Marlowe Show,\u201D in \u201CThe Jim Thorpe Story,\u201D \u201CGeography of a Horse Dreamer,\u201D \u201CTartuffe\u201D and \u201CCowboy, the Musical.\u201D Willy, the father of Second City L.A. improv actor Grady and Dallas actor/singer/dancer Molly Bess, is a proud member of the American Society of Composers, Artists and Publishers (ASCAP), Actors Equity, and PFLAG."@en . . . .