Wesley Paine

Wesley Paine, actor and museum professional, has been Director of the Nashville Parthenon since 1979. She believes passionately in the ability of art in all its forms to educate, inspire, and reach across cultural and national boundaries. Her role as director of the only full-size recreation of Athens’ ancient temple led to the founding of Theatre Parthenos, an organization devoted to the production of the ancient Greek plays on the steps of Nashville’s Parthenon.

She has also overseen or encouraged the production of music, visual art, and theater for audiences inside the museum. Since the 1990s she has been an officer of the Nashville Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, offering the Parthenon as the site for 5 -10 lectures a year by scholars from across the country and the world. As an actor she delights in working both with and without masks and in plays that reveal the universality of the human condition from ancient Greece to Shakespeare’s time to Restoration comedy to the present day.