Ron Keaton

The actor and playwright in residence here at our humble coffee shop is a perfect fool and an absolute genius.

Shakespeare’s ‘fools’ are anything but. They provide wit and wisdom to the fevered souls in his tragedies.

As an actor Ron has played Feste, Touchstone, Trinculo and Lear’s unnamed jester.

But actually the Bard isn’t the only son of the sceptered isle Ron has brought to life.

He created a one-person show about Winston Churchill and took it to Off Broadway where it scored an extended run. The work centers on the chillingly prescient Iron Curtain speech the former prime minister delivered in Iowa in 1946.

He and Winston returned to sell out to rave reviews in Chicago as well.

Ron Perfect-Pitch Keaton started out as a song-and-dance guy. His studies of the International Phonetic Alphabet allow him to conjure up dialects ranging from an Irish brogue to a Wyoming drawl to a Churchillian growl.

The stage is the only honest work Ron’s ever considered. He’s grown from one type of role to another, working every year straight over the past half century.

“This is what I am.” he says. Even during those early years of palpable stage fright he needed to perform to stay whole. God knows I don’t do this for the money, he says with a well-rehearsed eye roll.

A performance is measured by what an audience gives back. Gasps, laughs and silences speak volumes to a performer. By the end of the first act Ron knows if he’s earned his bow.

His is a no-nonsense 90º bend at the waist with arms hanging loosely down.