Carolyn Jack

Playwright and author Jeffrey James Keyes grew up even more different than different.

 

It wasn't just that he was effeminate as a child and that he was bullied throughout his youth. What made his life unbearable was being labeled mentally slow by his parochial-school teachers. That assessment followed him from grade to grade until, one day, he couldn't stand it anymore. When he was only a high-school sophomore, Keyes took his life in his hands.

 

But not to end it. To begin it. On the day he sat in his guidance counselor's office and had to listen to her tell him that all he could hope for in life was work on a farm or in a factory, Keyes hit a tipping point: He made up his mind to change schools.

 

"I believe I became an adult at that moment and took control of my life," he said. "I learned to advocate for myself."

 

That may sound like a small step to those who have never been harassed and misjudged by an entire buildingful of people for 10 years. But it was huge for Keyes – after hearing from teacher after teacher that he was sub-par intellectually, he wondered if even his family believed it. But his parents, a hospital-records worker and a construction employee who were separated, loved and encouraged their son. Though he didn't feel he could really talk to his mother then about being gay or being tormented by his classmates, he could talk to her directly about his future. So when he came home and told her that he wanted to attend a different high school, Keyes remembered, "She was all for it. I think she was impressed that I had a plan."

 

It was true that he had been a poor student as a child. He read slowly, and still does. He earned low grades. His teachers decided early on that that was who he was.

 

"I had classes that inspired me, for sure, and teachers that inspired me," Keyes noted, "but I had a D on my shirt, for dumb." When your permanent scholastic record classifies you that way, he added, "you carry that information that people have about you all the way through … high school. I was bullied a lot. I saw no way that I would ever make it to the next year if I stayed at that school."       

 

The courage Keyes found in himself to change his fate had been fed by one day of attending a local theater school, the First Stage Theater Academy in his hometown of Milwaukee, Wis., where he went as the guest of a friend. At the end of the day, he broke down in tears. When the leader of the school, Ron Anderson, pulled him aside to ask why, the young Keyes explained that he had loved the class, but his parents could never afford to send him regularly. Anderson promised the boy that if he were willing to help out at the school, he could be an intern and attend class for free.

 

Keyes was and did. He had found what he needed. He ended up working and studying at the academy summers and weekends throughout high school, taking a vast range of classes including stage combat, improv, voice and speech, classical/contemporary scene study, mask work, and in-depth Shakespeare and Chekhov classes.

 

"It changed my life," he said. "That gave me the confidence to understand that, just because you're dealt a hand," you don't have to just accept it. "That place helped me to see that there was more to me than what that guidance counselor saw."

   

But at 15, he still felt desperate about his high-school situation. Keyes knew that some of his acting friends attended a different Catholic high school, one with a strong arts program. He decided that that was the school for him, so he and his parents went there to talk with a counselor. The counselor – named Jeff, like Keyes – took them on a tour of the school and sat with Keyes through the assessment test.

 

The test results led the counselor to enroll the teenager in classes that were all AP – advanced placement. He said, Keyes recalled, " 'I think you're not being challenged at the school you're in.' He was like a guardian angel for me."

 

A perceptive angel, at that: Keyes made straight A's, his natural high intelligence stimulated and thriving at last. In his final year at Milwaukee's Pius XI Catholic High School, he decided to try out for the theater programs at Emerson College and Boston University. Having played Mercutio in a production of Romeo and Juliet, Keyes had chosen that character's famous "Queen Mab" speech as his audition piece. But on the way, he impulsively decided to stop by Fordham University, a Jesuit-founded school in New York City: Not only had some of his high school friends decided to go there, but his "guardian angel" counselor had taken a job there, as well. Once on the campus, Keyes was invited to audition for Fordham theater professor Eva Patton and Lawrence Sacharow, head of the university's theater program.

 

Keyes performed the Queen Mab speech. The instant he finished, he recounted, Sacharow leaped to his feet. "You're in!" he exclaimed. Though Patton quickly warned her colleague, "You can't say that!" – there was, of course, an admissions process to be followed – the university did end up accepting Keyes to the program, based at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, laying the groundwork for his later MFA studies in playwriting at Columbia University uptown.

 

If Keyes's high school and college records would likely shock – and humble – some of those early teachers of his in Milwaukee, his professional record since completing his MFA would astound them all. Now a senior administrator at a New York-based foundation, Keyes has for years balanced meaningful day jobs with a wide range of writing projects and successes. While working in earlier positions including theater-program administrator and student-affairs officer at the Columbia University School of the Arts, Keyes has generated a wide and eclectic array of creative writing, including plays, films, journalism, and a best-selling James Patterson book, Killer Chef (2016), on which he earned co-author credit.

 

His plays have been presented at many festivals across the country, such as the 2013 and 2016 Samuel French OOB Festival and the New York International Fringe Festival. His award-winning short film, Uniform, for which he was both screenwriter and executive producer, made the official-selection rosters of over 20 festivals from Los Angeles to Atlanta. And Keyes's many magazine pieces – lots of them written for LGBTQ+ publications and websites, have included interviews with a host of notables including Sandra Bernhard, James Ijames, Ani Di Franco, Billy Porter, Mo'Nique, George Takei and Elaine Stritch.

 

In the middle of all this activity, Keyes also won the 2020 L'Engle/Rahman Prize for Mentorship from PEN America, which honors participants in its long-established Prison Writing Mentorship program – a testament to Keyes's constant efforts to help others, whether students, fellow artists or those at risk.

 

What he may be proudest of, however, is serving as an example of a self-sustaining artist. To Columbia students and others, "I think I really showed that I'm able to be a stable, creative person, put food on the table without outside help," he said. Keyes believes aspiring artists need see that they can both create art and survive, not just barely, but decently. To them, he's demonstrated that "I'm still writing – it doesn't really matter what I do during the day" to earn money.          

 

All of Keyes's achievements, past and to come, came close to never existing at all. What helped him, starting in Milwaukee, was community – the family, friends, theater artists and others who supported and assisted him along the way. Keyes continues both to rely on community and to be community for others, and he wants his fellow artists to not forget to value those magic circles of people who share experiences and ideas, who lift you up.

 

"They encourage me to write. And they come out and support me," he said of his creative friends. "Who's going to read your stuff if you don't have a community? I work with people in my communities to clear the path." Since that crossroads moment with the guidance counselor, "I've learned to listen to my gut, but also to really trust people," Keyes observed. "I'm not a climber, but I do lean into people who are authentic, totally good, kind people, and look for those open doors. I'm grateful that I advocated for myself and was blessed to walk through so many open doors."