SOME SAY...
"It's just another vision from the gleefully twisted world of Ken Roht, a choreographer-director-writer-performer and all-around theatrical auteur who matter-of-factly calls
his work 'avant-garde song and dance--you know, whimsical, surrealist music theater,'
as if we all know what he's talking about."
a theatrical savant implies he knows not what he does—
that he's an idiot savant to boot. He might be the first to agree.
LA Stage Magazine, Feature Article
Roht's vision is part dream - part nightmare - a sliver of fantasy and some social commentary
wrapped with a huge blanket of imagination and creativity. By the end of the 55 minutes,
you feel that you fell through Alice's rabbit hole,
and the images you saw are you, looking back at yourself.
Entertainment Today
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Bio...
Ken Roht is a Los Angeles-based artist, currently
writing the book for a movie musical for producers at Bloom Projects. He is
also creating an arts program and online arts magazine, NOISE NEWS, for at-risk
young adults in the Los Angeles area.
Ken recently co-directed and
choreographed The Behavior of Broadus, about behaviorist John Boadus Watson, co-produced by
Center Theater Group, which was awarded Best Musical in Los Angeles, 2014. Ken
received the Best Choreographer award. Other recent CTG collaborations include two
commissions, in 2016 and 2014, to write and direct progressive holiday
musicals. And, he choreographed Martin Sherman’s Bent for director Moises Kaufman
at CTG’s Mark Taper Forum.
As a filmmaker, Ken's film Perfect
Cowboy was chosen to screen during the first weekend of Los Angeles OUTFEST
at the Directors Guild of America. The festival celebrated Ken as one of their
top five writer/directors to follow, "5 in Focus". The film is now
being distributed by Breaking Glass Pictures. Ken’s first film, a vampire
musical starring Kevin Richardson of The Backstreet Boys, was a glorious mess
and tanked.
Ken adapted, directed and
choreographed Queenie Pie, Duke Ellington's only opera, for Chicago
Opera Theater and Long Beach Opera, as well as the highly successful production
of the Czech opera, The Good Soldier Schweik. He is the creator and
director of the yearly holiday musicals co-sponsored by the 99c Only Stores
chain. Seven original musicals in eight years. Ken also directed and
choreographed an evening of Offenbach one-acts for Bard Summerscape Festival in
New York. And his one-act opera Last Resort opened the first New Works
Festival at Disney’s REDCAT.
Ken was a recipient of a 2010
COLA grant from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, for the creation
of a one-act opera, Permissible Union,
in response to anti-gay legislation, Prop 8. It was performed at Los Angeles
Grand Performances. He also received
the 2003 Audrey Skirball Kenis $45,000 TIME Grant, awarded to only five others
in the country. Ken has also been granted and/or commissioned by Durfee
Foundation, Dance Theater Workshop, California Arts Council, and Evidence Room
Theater.
Ken choreographs for other
directors, notably at New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York’s Playwrights
Horizons, La Jolla Playhouse, Yale Repertory, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (for
seven consecutive years), Getty Villa, Kirk Douglas Theater, Dorothy Chandler
Pavilion, Cornerstone, South Coast Rep, Gale Gates et al, Ohio's Great Lakes
Theater Festival and Lookingglass in Chicago.
As a performer, Ken sang lead
roles in rock opera projects with Grace Jones and with New York City Opera
singers; acted in videos by artists Bill Viola, Paul McCarthy and Winsome
Brown; recently danced in Florence + The Machine’s “What Kind of Man” video;
and was a company member and principle choreographer for the genius-auteur Reza
Abdoh’s Dar-a-Luz, an international, experimental theater company (the work now
archived at Lincoln Center and Cal Arts) for seven years. Before that, Ken was
a member of the very wholesome national song and dance ensemble, The Young
Americans.
So, Ken is a functional
schizophrenic and a very well rounded artist.
Gerald Herman
Kathi Finnerty
Kathi Finnerty
Plum Foundation
Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles
Good Works Foundation
Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theater Projects
The Oppenheims
Durfee Foundation
L.A. Future Projects
Flintridge Foundation
Dance Theater Workshop
California Arts Council
California Arts Council
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