Keon Heywood is a multi-talented artist who jumps outside the box to perfect his art. The dancer, singer and actor has received recognition in all three of these areas.
As far as acting is concerned, Keon has had memorable roles in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Malcolm De Freitas in 2012 and 2013 – he was Puck; Mosa Telford’s Shadows as Uncle Eustace; and Paradox, a play written by Jamal La Rose for the Merundoi Festival in 2012. He was also cast as Uncle Frank in Ken Danns’ The Farepicker for the 2013 National Drama Festival; Salazar in Rae Wiltshire’s Creative Burial Ground (2013) for which he was awarded Best Supporting Actor at the National Drama Festival; and his most recent, Desmond in Francis Quamina Farrier’s Tides of Susanburg.
Keon said he “absolutely enjoyed my role in Creative Burial Ground.” Connecting with the character Salazar was like an addiction for him. Salazar was very dark and sinister, but he was also a seducer. “I had to keep in mind that my purpose was to kill the female lead, but first I must make her lust after me.
She was the moth and I was the flame. Salazar was dangerously alluring,” he said.
He said he was excited when Producer/Director Collette Jones-Chin approached him to play Desmond in Tides. The acclaimed radio serial drama had been adapted into a play and was being re-staged after many years. “I wanted to be a part of history,” he said.
Keon’s own history with the performing arts began with dance in 2003 when he was introduced to hip-hop by Jacob Croal while at a football training camp.
“Mr Croal ran a dance group at the Campbellville Community Centre. He came and showed a hip-hop dance video to us lads one night. That sparked my interest in dance, and I started taking classes with him shortly after the camp was over. I saved my allowance to pay for dance classes. I was a very horrible dancer at first but I was eager to learn everything and Mr Croal was very patient,” Keon said.
After about six months he left Jacob Croal’s group and began taking modern and contemporary dance classes with Ronda Dunbar until mid-2004 when he enrolled in the National School of Dance and took classes in African/Afro Caribbean dance, modern and contemporary with Vivienne Daniel, Kathak with Kenrick Cheeks and Masquerade with Linda Griffith. He was at the National School of Dance intermittently until 2007 when he began working with Johnathon and Esther Hamer at Kreative Arts Dance Company. This lasted until 2010 when he “took a break from dance to explore drama.”
For most of 2009 and early 2010, a good friend of his, actor Leon Cummings kept inviting him to join the Theatre Guild, as he thought Keon would do well there. Keon declined the invitations until the latter part of 2010.
The very first play he performed in at Theatre Guild was Makantali where he was cast as a dancer. He then did several variety shows where he performed as a dancer and singer, but his very first opportunity to act came in 2011 with Shadows, directed by Tivia Collins, which was a huge success.
“It did well in at the Theatre Guild Festival, and went on to place second at the National Drama Festival. After Shadows, several other acting opportunities presented themselves,” he said. When he joined the Theatre Guild he fell in love with the people and atmosphere there; he said he was having so much fun, and that was what kept him interested.
“I am a people person at heart, and I love to have fun and be around lively individuals,” he said. “Being a performance artist, I have lots of opportunities to be silly sometimes and not take myself seriously.
However, apart from the fun and excitement of being involved in the arts, I am motivated by the fact that the performing arts, and can be used as a medium to effect change and a tool for education. The arts can enrich the lives of many, and as an artist you get a 
chance to reflect on the world around you and to use your creativity to comment on issues and suggest solutions to problems. I enjoy being a part of that process because it continually forces me to examine myself critically and to question what I do and why I do it. The greatest gift the arts gave me is that it helped me understand myself and become more open-minded and grounded.”
When asked how he believes the arts can benefit the Guyanese society and what ideas he has to promote the entertainment industry he said: “For many creative artists in Guyana, it is a continual balancing act. Many of us have full time jobs in addition to being involved in the arts. The arts can be very demanding on your time and in many cases artists are exploited and treated unfairly as professionals.
We put in hours to get it right and are paid peanuts a lot of the time. I have worked with producers and organisations who I have vowed never to work with again simply because they showed little value and respect for artists. In my opinion, promoting drama and the arts on the national stage requires two main ingredients.
Firstly, for the artist to value themselves and their craft enough to spend time to perfect what they do. And secondly promoting the arts on a national stage also requires change in policy. Establishing a comprehensive and functional national cultural policy regime in Guyana as the Janus Cultural Policy Initiative (JCPI) project has embarked on is what I would encourage.
The right policies which protect and promote creative artists in Guyana will create an environment for us to thrive. Many times we put the cart before the horse when what we need to do first is set up the right structural framework.”
There are several persons in the theatre fraternity who inspire him: Malcolm De Fretitas has been his mentor from his very first day at the Guild. Mariatha Causway aka Jennifer Thomas, Dr Paloma Mohamed and Aileen Hintzen have also taken him under their wings and each in their own unique way has been very instrumental in his development as an actor and performer.
He enjoys being a dancer and over the years he has grown significantly in technique and versatility. Keon freelances as a dancer and in recent times he has been working and training with Unique Arts and Glaston Youth Ballet.
In 2011 at a church conference he was approached to join the Last Dayz Band as a vocalist. He considers this one of the best decisions that he has made as music is his first love.
The Last Dayz Band is a gospel group of multitalented individuals, from various backgrounds. Some of them work with other professionals in the music industry; some members have successful full time careers and some even run businesses. They do reggae, jazz 
and contemporary covers of popular gospel songs as well as original songs which they compose themselves.
“I would like to continue honing my skills as a performing artist and give it all back to the world in whatever way God sees it fit for me to serve. My mind is open,” Keon said.
At the moment, he teaches English Language, Literature and Information Technology at Carmel Secondary School.
He hopes to continue working in the public secondary education system for the time being, then move on to academic research. He is particularly interested in Communication and Cultural Studies.
Keon is a trained teacher and has completed the Diploma in Drama at the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama.
