Biographie
After graduating Hartford's Trinity College, Chip Keyes moved to NYC with The Portable Circus, a comedy troupe he had founded at Trinity. The Portable Circus toured nationally, playing over 90 colleges and had theatrical runs in Philadelphia and New York, as well as bookings at The New York Playboy Club and The Main Point in Philadelphia.
With Jeffrey Lippa, Mr. Keyes was half of the 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 both The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Livingston Taylor at NY's The Bottom Line. Later, after moving to LA, Keyes & Lippa appeared regularly at The Comedy Store and the Improv as well as other area clubs.
When the team amicably split up, Mr. Keyes returned to NY, where he 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 had staged readings at The I.R.T. (Impossible Ragtime Theatre) and The Circle in the Square.
In 1980. he returned to Los Angeles to pursue writing for television, often working with writing partners (and brothers) Bob Keyes & Doug Keyes .
His script for Gimme a Break's "The Chief's Gay Evening" episode received an award from GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Artists Against Defamation.) He was show-runner for five years on Valerie, which later became 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. Due to this, Mr. Keyes was interviewed by The Today Show and The New York Times. "Bad Timing" received a TV Guide Close-up and a Nancy Susan Reynolds Award from The Center for Population Options. Two other episodes he wrote also received TV Guide Close-ups.
With his brothers, Chip Keyes has written nine pilots, producing four of them: Bliss, starring George Kennedy, for ABC; Paperback Writer, starring Robert Wagner for NBC; Shaky Ground, starring Matt Frewer & introducing Jennifer Love Hewitt, for the Fox Network and Star Patrol! starring Charles Rocket for the Fox network. Shaky Ground ran on the Fox network during the 1992-1993 season.
Among the many television shows for which he has produced or written over the years 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.
