Celebrity chasing is not my style. I believe in giving everyone his or her own space, and letting it be. I’ve interviewed enough celebs or near‑celebs in my life to know better than most that, to paraphrase Hemingway, “the famous are different from you and me–they have more fame.” And that’s about the only real difference.

Sometimes, though, celebrities find me. There was the time in the 1980s I was standing in line at a drugstore in Manhattan with a bottle of vitamin C. The man in front of me in line–his back to me, of course–was short and thin and balding. Slowly, we progressed to checkout.

When this little bald guy arrived at the head of the line and put his purchases on the counter, you would have thought the two salesgirls at the cash registers were seeing Elvis or something. Their eyes grew huge, their faces froze in ecstatic smiles, and they couldn’t stop talking to the guy. Held up in line, I became irritated. When their conversation ended and the little bald man at last took his package and left, I heaved a sigh and plopped my vitamin C on the counter. The girls kept chatting. One of them said, “His eyes really are that blue!”

It was Paul Newman.

You took celebs for granted in Manhattan. Once on the Upper West Side, a friend pointed out a blonde of no immediate distinction crossing the street. It was Madonna.

Spotting the famous in Phoenix is tougher. Unlike Manhattan, where everyone is pretty much restricted to the same narrow channel of streets and everybody at some point or other walks, Phoenix sprawls lazily over geography the size of Luxembourg and everybody drives. A good place to find them is in theaters, clubs and concert halls.

I once interviewed a former member of the Phoenix Boys Choir about his most memorable experience in the choir. Was it the music he had sung? The places he had traveled to sing it? The musicians he’d worked with? Nope, it was a person in the audience.

This singer had won a role as one of the street urchins in the opening scene of “Carmen,” as produced by Arizona Opera. As he prepared to sing his part about the changing of the guard, the young singer glanced down into the audience and saw ... Paul McCartney. (This was in the early 1990s when McCartney shared an Arizona home with his beloved wife Linda.) It was all the kid could do not to stop the action, point a finger and say, “Look! A Beatle!”

Of course, celebrities have emerged from Arizona, including actor Nick Nolte, singer Linda Ronstadt, and the singer‑songwriter I am privileged to call a friend, Jessi Colter. The trick is to spot them before they become celebs.

Michael Barnard, producing artistic director for Phoenix Theatre, tells the story of a young man who ran props for the company back in the early 1960s, when it was called Phoenix Little Theatre. Enthusiastic for all aspects of production, it was the young Scottsdale man’s long‑term ambition to make movies. When eventually he completed one, he screened this first effort at Phoenix Little Theatre, earning a whole $90 at the box office. I bet it was the most precious money Steven Spielberg ever made, though he went on to, well, bigger things.

Arizonans, be kind to the young artists around you. They well could be the celebs–and the contributing artists–of the future.

The most performed playwright in the Valley this fall is also the most performed playwright of the English‑speaking world–no mean feat nearly four centuries post‑mortem.

William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” opens the season this week for Arizona Theatre Company. The comedy, arguably the Bard’s most lyrical, brims with fantasy. Tickets are $21‑$57; call (602) 256‑6995.

“The Tempest,” Shakespeare’s final play and as beautiful a summation of life and love as you can find, is already underway at Mesa Arts Center, as produced by Southwest Shakespeare Company. Tickets are $25‑32; call (480) 641‑7039.

And to complete what amounts to a de facto festival of Shakespeare comedies, the Algonquin Theatre, which performs over in Surprise at West Valley Art Museum, will open “Merchant of Venice” Oct. 13. Tickets are $20, general admission; call (602) 547‑8920.

Hear Ken host “Two on the Aisle” every Sunday at 7 p.m. on KPHX, 1480 AM.