Just in time for Halloween, an annual event in Alexandria invites audiences to embrace mystery and the macabre through the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Actor David Keltz will resume his role as the famous poet on October 29 and 30 at The Lyceum.
The Alexandria shows serve as a recreation of a visit Poe took to Alexandria in 1849, shortly before his death. Keltz will regale guests with some of Poe’s poems, short stories, and critical reviews. It’s been a tradition for Keltz for more than 20 years, with a slightly different lineup of readings each year. This year, audiences can expect Hop-Frog, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Raven.
Keltz says that he wants audience members to walk away feeling as though they met and spoke with Poe himself.
“You often hear literature majors … asking the question, ‘If you could have any writer for your dinner guest from all of history, who would it be?’” he says. “And I always would have liked to have met and talked to Poe, so I try to give the audiences that experience of actually meeting him.”
Decades of Poe Performances
Keltz first picked up the role of Poe in 1991, with a performance on Halloween night at Poe’s grave. Now, more than 30 years in, he has more than six hours of Poe’s works memorized and ready for recitation.
He’s performed as Poe all along the East Coast and in Prague for the International Poe Festival. His performance has received praise from The Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, the Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia, and The Poe Museum in Richmond.
To perfect the role, he says he spent a great deal of time learning about Poe, reading his works and others’ accounts of him, and practicing reading those works aloud.
“I didn’t know exactly, in the beginning, how he sounded, but after a while I began to feel it,” he says. One day, Keltz was running his lines and “suddenly, it was almost as if somebody else was doing it. I just felt this voice come out that … I thought, ‘That is Poe. That’s what Poe sounded like.’”
Keltz says that he’s drawn to Poe’s writing style and the way he created atmosphere in his stories. He says the stories stand out because they dealt with things that could really happen. “He didn’t write about ludicrous characters like zombies, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, anything like that,” Keltz says. “It was just real human phenomenon, and that’s what makes them so scary.”
The Lyceum: 201 S. Washington St., Alexandria, tickets are $25; $20 for Office of Historic Alexandria members and volunteers
Feature image of David Keltz as Edgar Allan Poe by Manuel Bruges, courtesy David Keltz
