Save The Date: A Night With Poe

David Keltz gave his first performance as Edgar Allan Poe on Halloween night 1991 at Poe’s grave. Delighting all ages, he commands five hours of Poe’s poems, short stories, essays, literary criticism, letters and reported conversations.

Beginning with Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” David added “The Black Cat,” “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” “Hop-Frog,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “Some Words with a Mummy,” and “The Spectacles” to his repertoire. In keeping with Edgar Poe’s own “Poetic Principle,” David recites “To Helen,” “Annabel Lee,” “The Raven,” and many more of Poe’s famous poems.

In his travels, David performed in Prague, Czech Republic for the International Poe Festival, opening the Festival at the Rudolfinum Concert Hall with “The Bells.” Stateside, he continues to bring Edgar Poe to life throughout the United States for elementary and high schools, universities, and private organizations, large and small. His popular Poe Bus Tour of Baltimore was a highlight of the Poe Studies Association International Conference in 2002.

Besides traditional theatre settings, performance spaces as diverse as castles, libraries, medical theatres, and private dining rooms provide the backdrop for his personification of the genius we recognize as Edgar Allan Poe. Each performance is tailored to the particular audience and ranges from 10 minutes to 2 hours.
David’s television credits include “Homicide: Life on the Street,” for the BBC, “Hannah USA,” for CNN, Mike Rowe’s “Somebody’s Gotta Do It” and for the Food Network, “Ace of Cakes.” Film credits include “E.A. Poe: Visionary” and “The Raven” for arte-TV in Germany and France; and “Edgar Allan Poe: 200 Years of Mystery, The Investigative Technique of Detective Akechi Kogoro” for NHK Japan. He appeared on Mike Rowe’s podcast “The Way I Heard It” in 2021 under the title “Would You Care to Have Your Head Read?” available on MikeRowe.com/podcast.

In 1995 he personified Edgar Allan Poe in TV commercials for the NFL Baltimore Ravens. Stage credits include leading roles in Exit the King, Sticks and Bones, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and Rashomon. As a solo performer, he reincarnates such diverse characters as D.H. Lawrence, H.L. Mencken, Captain John Smith and phrenologists Nelson Sizer and Orson Squire Fowler. David received his B.A. in Theatre from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and is a longtime member of SAG-AFTRA.