Ronnie Kerr, a former gang member from Chicago, has turned his life around thanks to acting.
Kerr, now a community activist, joined the gang when he was 10 years old. By the time he was 16, Kerr had been arrested over 20 times and spent two years in juvenile detention centers. He finally went to prison at age 17 for armed robbery.
“I went to prison because I tried to rob a drug dealer who didn’t have any money,” Kerr says. “He got off on probation and I got seven years.”
While in prison, Kerr began acting in plays. The more he acted, the more his life changed. He eventually decided to leave his gang behind and pursue a career as an actor. He earned a scholarship to attend Columbia College in Chicago after leaving prison.
Kerr has been out of prison for almost 18 years now and is still acting. He also coaches young actors and teaches theater classes in schools throughout the city of Chicago’s west side.*
Ronnie Kerr, a former gang member from Chicago, has turned his life around thanks to acting.
The 46-year-old father of three, who has served two prison sentences for drug dealing and robbery, is now working as a full-time actor and hopes to one day win an Oscar.
Mr Kerr was raised in a strict Christian household and had never tasted alcohol or tried drugs until he moved to the notorious Cabrini-Green housing project in Chicago’s Near North Side after graduating high school.
“I was always a good kid,” Mr Kerr told International Business Times UK. “My parents were very religious so I didn’t drink or smoke until I went to college.”
He quickly fell in with the wrong crowd: “I started hanging out with the gangsters and getting into trouble,” he said. “They were doing all kinds of stuff – shootings, drug dealing.”
His first conviction came at 17 when he robbed a gas station at gunpoint in order to fund his new addiction to heroin. He spent four years in prison for that offence and another eight years behind bars for assault after getting into an argument with another man over $50 (£30) worth of cocaine.
Ronnie Kerr, a former gang member from Chicago, has turned his life around thanks to acting.
Ronnie joined the Gangster Disciples at age 15 and was eventually sent to prison. But while he was inside, he found a passion for acting. After he was released on parole in 1991, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his new dream. There were many obstacles along the way, but Ronnie overcame them all with the help of a few devoted friends.
Now Ronnie is a successful actor and playwright in Los Angeles. His inspiring story is told in the documentary A Dream For Ronnie.
Ronnie Kerr, a former gang member from Chicago, has turned his life around thanks to acting. His story was chronicled in the new documentary, “After Actors.”
Kerr was an active member of the Gangster Disciples in Chicago and said he had no interest in leaving that life behind him. But after a friend sent him an audition tape for a play, he decided to give acting a try.
Ronnie Kerr, a former gang member from Chicago, has turned his life around thanks to acting.
“I’ve been in gangs since I was 9 years old,” said Kerr. “I’ve been out here all my life battle testing, doing what I got to do to survive.”
A lot of people think that acting is just play-acting. But this is serious stuff, he says. He compares it to boxing, and not just because both professions were popularised by Sylvester Stallone. Both are competitive and require dedication if you want to succeed. “You got to bring your A game,” he said.
He believes that it’s essential for actors to have a good support system behind them in order to thrive. “As an actor you need people who you can talk to and confide in,” he said.
Lifelong Chicago gang member Ronnie Kerr knows the pain of losing a loved one to senseless violence.
“I’ve seen a lot of people die,” says Kerr, 32, who has been shot at, witnessed murders and lost friends to gangs. “I don’t want to be another statistic out here.”
Kerr, who grew up in the tough Lawndale neighborhood on the city’s West Side, has seen what happens when young people are not given an opportunity to succeed. A drug dealer since he was 16 years old, Kerr knew he had to change when his first child was born.
“It took me having a kid and seeing myself in him,” says Kerr. “I didn’t have a dad around when I was growing up so I just knew that I couldn’t be that father for my son.”
In 2013 he became involved with Free Street Theater, a company where actors perform improvised plays for Chicago Public School students about themes such as bullying and peer pressure that are relevant in their lives.
After a performance at his son’s school last year, Kerr decided he wanted to get on stage and share his story with other young people so they could learn from his mistakes. He signed up for classes at Free Street and began performing as part of their outreach
Ronnie Kerr has had an extraordinary career trajectory. He’s gone from being a teenage gang member in Chicago to living in London, where he is studying for a master’s degree at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada).
Kerr was first exposed to theatre when he was 15, while enrolled in a programme called Ceasefire, which operates across the US and tries to reduce youth violence by offering young people jobs and training. “Ceasefire’s not just about gun violence,” he says. “It’s about creating safe spaces for kids to go to. For me, that was theatre.”
There are around 100 kids on the programme each year and they get paid $5.25 (£3.70) an hour for their work; Kerr blossomed as a performer and discovered Shakespeare in particular. After four years with the organisation, however, he decided that he needed to escape his neighbourhood if his prospects were going to improve. His mother helped him look into opportunities overseas and he eventually ended up at Rada, where he has been studying since 2012.
Kerr feels grateful to Ceasefire but also knows how lucky he was that his mother saw the potential in him. “People who run these programmes are doing good work but I don’t
