Chip Keyes

After graduating Hartford's Trinity College, Chip Keyes moved to NYC with The Portable Circus, a sketch comedy troupe he founded at Trinity. The Portable Circus toured nationally, at over 90 colleges and had theatrical runs in Philadelphia and New York, as well as bookings at the NY Playboy Club & The Main Point in Philadelphia. He next was half of comedy team Keyes & Lippa, playing such NY clubs as The Improvisation and Catch a Rising Star. They opened for Maureen McGovern at The Bitter End, as well as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Livingston Taylor at NY's The Bottom Line. After a move to LA, Keyes & Lippa appeared regularly at The Comedy Store and Improv as well as other local clubs. When the team amicably split, Keyes returned to NY and made his living as an actor on stage, in soaps and TV commercials. As a playwright, his Easy Outs or The Adventures of Alphonse On the Lam was co-produced by Arts Ark and the Federal Theater Collective. There's A Broken Light For Every Heart, for which he'd written the musical book, was done at The Process Studio Theater. He directed his own Archibald & Basil at Vinnette Carroll's Urban Arts Corps, starring Eric Rhodes (Top Hat, Gay Divorcee.) Easy Outs also got staged readings at The I.R.T. (Impossible Ragtime Theatre) and Circle in the Square. In 1980, he returned to LA to pursue writing for television, often working with writing partners (and his brothers) Bob Keyes & Doug Keyes. His script for Gimme a Break's "The Chief's Gay Evening" received an award from Gay & Lesbian Artists Against Defamation. He was a show-runner for five years on Valerie, the name of which later was changed to The Hogan Family. His script for Valerie's "Bad Timing" episode marked the first time the word "condom" had been used on a network comedy. Mr. Keyes was interviewed about this on The Today Show and in The New York Times. "Bad Timing" received a TV Guide Close-up and a Nancy Susan Reynolds Award. Two other episodes he wrote also received TV Guide Close-ups. With his brothers, Keyes has written nine network pilots, producing four of them: Bliss, starring George Kennedy, for ABC; Paperback Writer, starring Robert Wagner for NBC; Shaky Ground, starring Matt Frewer (and introducing Jennifer Love Hewitt) for the Fox Network & co-created Fox's Star Patrol! pilot starring Charles Rocket and Paget Brewster. Shaky Ground ran on Fox in the 1992-1993 season. Among the shows for which he's produced or written are Sanford, Best of the West, Aloha Paradise, Benson, Gimme a Break, Newhart, Valerie/Valerie's Family/The Hogan Family, Perfect Strangers, Shaky Ground, Something So Right, Two of a Kind, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, That's So Raven and Yin! Yang! Yo! In 2008, Easy Outs was revived in New York by End Times Productions. Mr. Keyes' play Uncoupled was done at LA's Theatre of N.O.T.E. and Meanwhile In Another Part Of The Forest: Classic Fairy Tales was produced by Parson's Nose Productions for the Geffen Theatre's family-oriented Saturday Scene. Keyes continues writing in a number of fields, as well as finding work as an actor from time to time.