Honoree Tom Key

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Tom Key has been the Executive Artistic Director of Atlanta’s Theatrical Outfit since 1995 where he has lead the organization to the creation of its new home, The Balzer Theater At Herren’s, hailed by Atlanta Journal and Constitution  theater critic, Wendell Brock as, “the best small theater space in Atlanta” and the first theater in the United States to achieve silver certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design from The US Green Building Council.

At Theatrical Outfit he has produced five world premieres, eight regional premieres, and over thirty scripts by Southern Authors, including Tennessee Williams, Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor and Truman Capote on themes of race, community and spirituality; earned sixteen “Best of Year” notices from Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Creative Loafing, and Atlanta Magazine; won two Arts and Business Council Abby Awards; been recognized for career achievement by the Georgia Theater Conference and received two Mayoral Proclamations for Outstanding Service.

Mr. Key has been a solo performer in demand across North America for more than two decades including appearances of his C.S. Lewis On Stage and The Revelation of John at The John F.  Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Lambs Theater, New York; The Westwood Playhouse, Los Angeles; The Alliance Theater; Dallas Theater Center; Oxford University, England; Harvard and Yale Universities; and as Narrator for Beethoven’s Egmont with The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Peter and the Wolf for The Atlanta Ballet.

Key has been especially noted for his appearances in Theatrical Outfit’s Bloodknot, Hard Times, Summer and Smoke and for his direction of Hank Williams: Lost Highway and Thomas Ward’s new play Keeping Watch (Best Production 2006 Creative Loafing) as well as starring roles in The Alliance Theater’s Art, Woody Guthrie’s American Song, Candide, Grapes of Wrath, Our Town  and as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. 

He is well known for the off-Broadway hit, Cotton Patch Gospel, published by Dramatic Publishing Company, which he conceived and co-authored with the late singer-songwriter, Harry Chapin, earning two Dramalogue Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Theater, a nomination as Best Actor by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, and publication by Dramatic Publishing Company for which it is still, twenty five years later, one of the most produced plays in the musical catalogue.


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