January 2012

So the cutest thing ever happened today!! We’re in Huntsville, AL (which is absolutely gorgeous, btw, as we drove through the usual tiny southern one shop towns through Alabama, we were surprised to end up in this little modern with pre-civil war southern roots town) and we just finished the show. Virginia (Nina in the show) had a friend of a friend come up to say hello after the show and this girls friends had come along with her. As we’re all talking, this one very shy girl’s mother and friends eventually spilled that the young girl really wanted a “kiss” from Benny… my first kiss request… I smiled 🙂 and said “of course!”… I leaned in, held a kiss on the cheek so the mom could snap a pic on her iPhone and then the girl, beaming from ear to ear, said, “That was my first kiss.”… I am not a particularly gushy person, but that might have been one of the most heart warming things I’ve ever participated in. As we were walking away to head back to the hotel, the girl ran over and gave me a huge hug before running back with her mom and friends to go to the car. Anyway, just wanted to share that cute story… Hope everyone out there is having a wonderful Friday night, and have a safe weekend!!!

Love,

Kyle

Goodness gracious!!!… This is the first moment I’ve had to myself to breath, relax and collect my thoughts since we got back to the tour on January 8th, and now that I have the sniffles I just drank a dose of Nyquil, so we’re going to see how much I recollect before I start getting drowsy, haha

Going back to the Chicago experience… we went “off to the races” “right out of the gate”, to colloquialize (yup, just made up my own word, don’t hate!) our week in Chi-town. Before we even had our first rehearsal back from break, we already had a TV appearance for WGN and had to change the choreography that we weren’t even sure we remembered, haha… all went well tho, despite the nerves and pressure of performing a condensed version of 96,000 for the WGN cameras. Two days later, Virginia (who plays Nina) and I had to perform the song “When You’re Home” for ABC News in Chicago, and that was the first time I’ve ever felt like a “Star”. We got a full size limo to pick us up and take us to the studio, we had a personal assistant meet us and take us to the green room and ask us if we wanted Starbucks or anything, we got someone to do our make-up for us… totally spoiled. As for our actual shows, the Oriental Theatre in Chicago is BEAUTIFUL and one of the most extravagant theatres we’ve been to trailing Utica’s amaaazing theatre and the purple heaven of a theatre we were in at Waterbury, CT (despite the fights and murders that took place in our two days there). Since Chicago is pretty much a mini-extension of Notre Dame, it was great to get to see and hang out with different friends throughout the week.

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We’re Baaaaaaack!!!… After a month off of hanging with family and friends in Northern Virginia, it’s back to the grind. I went up to NYC twice to meet with vocal coach Liz Caplan there to keep my voice warm, and now I’m ready to go!!!… So on our first day back we found out that we have two live TV performances :-)… Yesterday in rehearsal we had to rework the blocking and change a few of the lyrics (props to our dancer LD for being the FCC and finding an appropriate rap line for TV, since one of my lines has a curse word in it) to fit our TV spot on WGN News today, and then me and Nina get to sing When You’re Home for the Chicago ABC News channel. We haven’t even had a brush up rehearsal for the real show, and we have to go TONIGHT!!! Just another day of crazy changes and having to adapt to the challenges the production company puts in front of you… We have 8 shows this week in Chicago, and then we’re off to Pennsylvania; we’re already off to a crazy start!

Love,

Kyle