Bill's Bio
Bill Bronner is an easy going eccentric with a huge circle of interesting and talkative friends and acquaintances. For Bill, an ideal morning begins with a large cup of coffee with lots of milk and sugar and three hours in the company of the Sunday newspaper. Then comes some internet surfing, with "This Week with George Stefanopoulos" or last night's SNL or Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher playing in the background, topped by friendly arguments with old friends about the day's events. Finally, a long hot bath -- not only smart, but clean! where he processes the information he's ingested and ponders the strange and fascinating state of life in this Republic on this planet in these post-millennial times.
It is these "thoughts from the tub" that Bill endeavors to bring to his listeners every "Free Speech" show. Bill Bronner, creator and host of the Free Speech Show, is the son of a brilliant, hard-partying, Republican, WWII vet, rocket scientist father and a liberated, loving, fundamentalist Christian mother. Because his father was at the cutting edge of the infant space program, the family moved frequently during his childhood (of course, it might have been the booze, too). Bill's mother raised her three children in the Seventh-day Adventist church where Bill and his siblings were sheltered from such evils as dancing, drinking and playing with Catholics. It was from such roots that came Bill's respectful skepticism of religious organizations and twelve step programs.
Bill Bronner has been "fighting the power" for his entire adult life. His first job after high school was at the "Little Debbie Snack Cake" factory. It was there he developed his belief that workers need to organize in order to receive their fair share of the "pie."
Tragically, Bill ended his career with the McKee Baking Co. to move to Salt Lake City where he invested all the money he and his young wife could borrow in an ill-advised candle-making venture promoted by a multilevel marketing company called "Scent of the West." Facing financial ruin at the tender age of 20, Bill thought it might not be a bad idea to get an education. He attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he received his degree in Economics and minored in Political Science. After encouraging the restaurant where he worked during college to pay the minimum wage -- and being terminated for his trouble, Bill decided to attend law school, planning to follow in the footsteps of one of his early heroes, Clarence Darrow, to fight for workers rights (his other plan, to follow in the steps of Muhammad Ali, probably would not have worked out, either). In September, 1978, Bill enrolled in law school at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville where he received the Howard Baker Senior Scholarship for leadership and merit.
Law school, a failing marriage and Reaganomics combined to make that period of Bill's life unfulfilled, so upon graduating from the University of Tennessee School of Law in 1981, Bill moved to San Francisco -- single and unlicensed to practice -- to pursue stand up comedy. He quickly became a regular at the comedy clubs that were the farm teams of the comedy movement of the early 1980s.
Realizing that opportunities for comedians were primarily centered in Los Angeles, Bill relocated to Southern California in 1986. After 2 years of working his way up, he finally became a regular at the Hollywood Improv. From his early beginnings in comedy, Bill's act primarily focused on current events, politics and stories of his dysfunctional family. In 1987, Bill was a founding player of the award winning "The Late Edition" where, with Doug Benson, Dylan Brody and Tom Sheikman, he satirized the events of the previous week.
In 1988, Bill met Steve Tatham while performing at Comedy IQ in Hollywood. Steve would become Free Speech regular.
In 1990, Bill and his roommate, actor and comedian Ron Pearson, opened the "TV Clean" comedy club (the Comedy Oasis) in the Salt Lake City Marriott Hotel. Bill taught writing and comedy classes and produced comedy shows in Salt Lake City until the fall of 1993 when he returned to Los Angeles.
In 1995, Bill created and starred in the dramatic television pilot "Lawdogs," the story of a disgruntled public defender who decides lawyers are the enemy and dedicates his energies to exposing corruption in the legal system.
In 1996 Bill Bronner created and produced a live comedy show titled "Free Speech." The stage version of Free Speech featured a group of comedians with each given a chance to deliver his or her thoughts on the topic of the show -- "Work," "Love," "Sex," "Death," "Taxes" and their various topical subsets -- followed by a panel discussion hosted by Bill. Within a year, the show was a critical and creative success playing to standing-room-only audiences at the Creativity Arts Bookstore and Theater in Santa Monica, California.
Steve Tatham has been a regular performer on Free Speech from the beginning and has been a favorite with fellow performers and audiences. Fred Joyal became a part of Free Speech in 1998, when he became a regular panelist on the show. After developing a personal friendship, Fred and Bill decided to produce the Free Speech television pilot and have been partners in promoting the show's attempts to improve the quality of American discourse.