Tom Key has been, since 1995, Executive Artistic Director of the acclaimed Theatrical Outfit at The Balzer Theater at Herren’s in downtown Atlanta, a professional company giving dramatic voice to the themes of spirituality, race and community in the American South. As a solo performer, Tom Key has been in demand across North America for three decades, including appearances at The Lambs Theater off-Broadway, The John F. Kennedy Center of Washington D.C., The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, The Dallas Theater Center, The Westwood Playhouse of Los Angeles, The Alliance Theater, Harvard and Yale Universities as well as Oxford University of England. He is well known as the actor and creator of the off-Broadway musical hit Cotton Patch Gospel—“Turns a whimsical Bible Story into an exuberant country western hoedown.” (Mel Gussow The New York Times). He has been featured in the award winning television series In the Heat of the Night and I’ll Fly Away, as well as the Mirimax Family Films Gordy, and The Adventures of Ociee Nash. For his performances, direction, or script adaptations based on works including Leonard Bernstein, Harry Chapin, Truman Capote, Saint John, Clarence Jordan, CS Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Hank Williams and Tennessee Williams, he has won critical praise from The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Boston Herald, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Most recently he directed the critically acclaimed world premiere at Theatrical Outfit of Thomas Ward’s Keeping Watch. Key’s dynamic as a performing artist has been described in the Atlanta publication, Creative Loafing, as: “An actor with such energy that even standing still, he seems to quiver like a divining rod.”.