Printer Friendly Version - Casey McKeon: Witness Fitness

Changing his major from musical theater and dance to exercise science gave Casey McKeon a new set of skills, but it hasn’t changed his commitment to sharing his talents with the residents at Essex Meadows, where he has worked since he was 16.Photo by Rita Christopher/The Courier

So, Casey McKeon of Chester, meet Charles Atlas. If you are a certain age, no explanation is needed. The name Charles Atlas brings back instant memories, usually of an advertisement on the back of a comic book that shows a bully kicking sand into the face of a 97-pound weakling. But revenge comes. The humiliated lad buys Charles Atlas’s dynamic tension system and presto, chango, Casey has a perfectly chiseled body.

Okay, Casey at 22 is far too young to remember those advertisements, and he never was a 97-pound weakiling. But he has done notable revamping with his own physique. By his own admission, he was not in impressive physical shape at Valley Regional High School.

“I was a skinny kid,” he recalls. “If I wore a puffy coat, my friends would say if the wind came I would look like a balloon and blow away.”

Not any more, Casey, now a physical fitness major entering his senior year at Eastern Connecticut State University, is a chiseled specimen.

“When friends from high school see me, they say, ‘You look fantastic. What happened?’” he says.

What happened is that Casey changed his college major from musical theater to fitness and health, and for the last year and a half has worked out five days a week, often for three hours a day.

Friends who don’t know about the change of major often ask another question: “Are you on Broadway yet?”

Not Broadway, but still Casey performs regularly at the Health Center at Essex Meadows. He sings to the residents—not today’s hits, but the songs of yesterday that are lodged in their memories.

At a recent performance, he had suffered from a throat irritation and cough and couldn’t sing for two weeks, but tells his audience he is once again feeling up to it. He starts out with the singer he says is one of his favorites: Frank Sinatra. “New York New York” is followed it up with Sinatra’s signature number, “My Way.” Casey tells his audience that he hopes to do a whole Sinatra program dressed like Frank in a black fedora before the summer is over

There is patter between each number. A song from Oklahoma is introduced by Casey’s recollection that he played Curly in an 8th grade performance of the show.

Before launching into Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” he reminds people the song is sung at every Red Sox home game.

“I sing it even though I am a Yankees fan,” he confesses, and encourages the group to join in the repeating syllables, Bap Bah Bah of the chorus.

Some people try the syllables, some keep gentle time with their hands, some smile. It is obvious there is a bond between performer and audience.

The bond is more obvious when Casey teaches very gentle exercise classes to the same population, with light weights as the participants sit in a circle. He talks about the value of bicep curls.

He fills the minute he waits between each set with chat. He talks about Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom he describes as one of his idols. He keeps encouraging.

“Friends” is the term he uses repeatedly to refer to the elderly population with whom he works.

Casey also works with Susan Carpenter, the community life services director, teaching exercise in the main Essex Meadow residence and also works at the facility’s gym as a personal trainer.

Casey didn’t start out as Essex Meadows singing and giving exercise classes. He started as a dishwasher when he was 16. While he was washing dishes, he sometimes sang and on one occasion, Ann Swaller, the director of therapeutic recreation, heard him. She asked if he would like to entertain, and so he has for the last year and a half.

Casey was a regular in Valley Regional Musical productions. He played Fred Barrett in Titanic; Dickon, one of the leading characters, in The Secret Garden; and was part of the cast in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He also appeared of several shows at the Ivoryton Playhouse including Oliver!, in which he played the Artful Dodger’s sidekick, Charley Bates; and Kitchen Witches, a four-actor production.

“I didn’t sing; I didn’t dance. I had only one line, ‘Wash Your hands, man,’” he recalls.

At Rhode Island College, Casey started out as a musical theater and dance major, even though he admits he was a far better singer than dancer. But he decided he wanted something else.

“I had spent so much time preparing to be someone else, I was more interested in being myself,” he says.

He transferred to Eastern, and became an exercise science major, changing not only his studies but, by determined workouts, his own body.

He has qualified as a fitness instructor though an online certification program, but hopes someday to end up as a director of health and wellness in a corporate setting.

At Essex Meadows, residents ask him if he ever intends to go back into theater. He admits he hasn’t completely ruled it out—but in that setting, he is content with another role.