Tom Key earned the baccalaureate (1973) and master’s degrees (1977) in theatre from UT. One of Atlanta’s most prominent actors, specializing in one-man shows, he wrote and acted in his first show—about C. S. Lewis—while serving as artistic director of the Birmingham Children’s Theatre. He conceived and coauthored (with Russell Treyz) Cotton Patch Gospel in 1981 with songwriter Harry Chapin shortly before Chapin’s death in 1981. That performance was an off-Broadway hit and earned two Dramalogue Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Theater and a nomination for Key as Best Actor by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. The play has been produced thousands of times across North America.
He served as artist and guest lecturer from 1991 to 1997 at Emory University and since 1995 has been executive artistic director of Atlanta’s Theatrical Outfit. For more than two decades, he has been in demand as a solo performer, including appearances in his C. S. Lewis on Stage and The Revelation of John at the Kennedy Center, Lamb’s Theatre off Broadway, and a host of other venues. He has adapted Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” and A Confederacy of Dunces for the one-man format. Creative Loafing described him as “an actor with such energy that even standing still, he seems to quiver like a divining rod.”