'Taking Over' with Danny Hoch at Arena Stage Nov.29-Dec.1

Arena Stage, through its partnership with the Georgetown Theater and Performance Studies program, will present three special performances of Danny Hoch's hilarious new solo show Taking Over. The performances will take place at Georgetown's Gonda Theatre in the Davis Performing Arts Center November 29 - December 1, 2007 at 8PM.

"Taking Over, written and performed by Danny Hoch, is a hilarious and heartbreaking look at gentrification in the new millennium. Invading artists, hipsters, developers, real estate agents, co-conspirators and longtime community folk are explored through the eyes, ears and voice of one of the Hip-Hop generation's leading actors and playwrights," explain press notes.

Danny Hoch is an actor, playwright and director whose plays Pot Melting, Some People and Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop have garnered many awards including two OBIES, an NEA Solo Theatre Fellowship, Sundance Writers Fellowship, CalArts/Alpert Award In Theatre and a Tennessee Williams Fellowship. His theater work has toured to 50 U.S. cities and 15 countries. He is a Senior Fellow at the New School's Vera List Center For Art & Politics and his writings on hip-hop, race and class have appeared in The Village Voice, New York Times, Harper's, The Nation, American Theatre and various books: "Out Of Character," "Extreme Exposure," "Laughing In The Dark," "Creating Your Own Monologue" and "Total Chaos." His book "Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop" is in its second printing by Villard Books/Random House.

His writing and acting credits for TV and film include Bamboozled, Washington Heights, Prison Song, Subway Stories, Thin Red Line, Whiteboys, Blackhawk Down, American Splendor, War Of The Worlds, Lucky You, "HBO Def Poetry" and he stars alongside Joaquin Phoenix, Robert Duvall, Eva Mendes and Mark Wahlberg in the upcoming We Own The Night and also HBO's new series "Wyclef Jean In America." Danny's own "Some People" (HBO) and the movie Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop were recently released on DVD.

Hoch founded the Hip-Hop Theater Festival in 2000, which has since presented over 75 hip-hop generation plays from all over the world and now appears annually in New York, Chicago, D.C. and San Francisco/Oakland. He directed Will Power's hit show Flow at New York Theatre Workshop, as well as the bilingual Representa at the the San Francisco International Arts Festival. Mr. Hoch is the recipient of a 2006 Creative Capital Grant and the 2007 Sundance Theatre Lab's Playwright-In-Residence. He sits on the board of Theatre Communications Group and the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival. His new epic play Till The Break Of Dawn, opened last September in New York, produced by The Culture Project at Abrons Arts Center.

Arena Stage and the Georgetown University Theater and Performance Studies Program formed an official partnership last year when Georgetown hosted an extremely successful two-week workshop for Moisés Kaufman's play 33 Variations. That workshop cemented a long-standing relationship, which has existed for years between Arena and Georgetown's theater department, into a strong partnership devoted to providing professional development opportunities for the future artists of American theater.

Ticket are Full Price: $25; Georgetown Students: $5; Georgetown Alumni, Faculty & Staff/Senior Citizens/Patrons under 30: $10. All tickets are available through Georgetown University. To purchase tickets please call 202-687-ARTS or visit online at performingarts.georgetown.edu.

Gonda Theatre/Davis Performing Arts Center is located at Georgetown University (37th and O Streets, NW) in Washington, D.C.

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