Well the keyPressed() method is a one-off event so your text may display, but just for one frame.  Maybe you'd be better off with the keyPressed boolean variable:

1. void setup() {
2.   size(200,200);
3.   PFont font = createFont("Arial", 18);
4.   textFont(font);
5. }
6. void draw() {
7.   background(0);
8.   if(keyPressed){
9.     println("foo");
10.     text("bar", 50, 50);
11.   }
12. }

Also note that the default text colour seems to be white; so if you have a white background you'll need to set the colour to something else with fill().

i see. i was under the impression, draw() wouldn't erase ane previous frames unless explicitely told to do so. my draw() currently doesn't do anything at all,a ll the real stuff is going on in threads.

well no... that's true.  But you didn't post complete code so I made the assumption you were probably wiping the background.  And the colour issue isn't a likely candidate if you've set the background to black; though worth double-checking.

Maybe you need to post some more complete code - e.g. what's happening in these other threads?

ok, i'll elaborate a bit.

my draw() does this:

1. void draw(){
2.   image(clipCurrent, 0, 0);
3. }

keyPressed() does:

1. void keyPressed(){
2.   println("foo");
3.   text("bar", 10, 10);
4. }

and the println() shows up in the console.

then i have a running thread that basically just iterates through a bunch of movies in an ArrayList

1. class clipPlayer implements Runnable{
2.  
3.   public void run(){
4.     while(true){
5.       for(int i=0; i<clips.size(); i++){
6.         clipCurrent= (Movie) clips.get(i);
7.         clipCurrent.play();
8.         while(clipCurrent.available()){
9.            //do nothing
10.         }
11.       }
12.     }
13.   }
14.  
15. }

and of course the movieEvent():

1. void movieEvent(Movie m){
2.   m.read();
3. }

so i don't see anything going on that might interfere with the text(). which, incidentally doesn't even do anything when the clip playing thread isn't started at all.

Hmmm...  but you are explicitly displaying something in draw():

1. void draw(){
2.   image(clipCurrent, 0, 0);
3. }

Are you sure your image isn't being displayed on top of the text?

not really. but even when draw() is empty, there's no text all.

Seems odd...  Presumably text works fine for you in other sketches?  E.g. if you run my previous example you see text whilst a key is held down?  Might be worth posting the complete code...