kyle

Heloooo!!! I’m chillin in Utica, NY right now watchin my roommate cut one of the other actors’ hair. This is our first day off since opening night and it is GLORIOUS. We got to the hotel today at 4pm and we don’t have to do a damn thing the rest of the day and I couldn’t be happier.

This first week has been wild and exhausting and our stage manager told us yesterday that she’s impressed with our stamina and patience… and we needed it. Day ONE at Penn State, they lost the orchestra’s music, so thanks to our amazing crew team, they ran out and printed new scores for the band like 3 hours before the show. Day TWO, our bus broke down on the side of the road and we had to wait for a new bus to pick us up for an hour in the middle of nowhere, and then upon reaching the theatre in York, we came to find that our sound engineer was in the hospital with a weird stomach virus!!! Other than that, we’ve had to continue to be flexible. We’re in a different theatre every day and the acoustics are different, the stages are different sizes, and the houses so far have been anywhere from like 500 to 4000 seat houses. Last night in West Point at the Eisenhower Theatre at the Army Academy, it was packed and I was told it was like a 3500 seat house. The craziest thing we’ve had to get accustomed to thus far tho, was in Indiana, PA at IUP, the stage was a full 6 feet less wide than our usual stage. The dances got preeeetty tight, and I definitely took a kick to the gut in the opening that I don’t think any one saw, so that’s good.

Everyone’s heading out to dinner right now, so I gotta run, but if I think of anything else interesting I’ll post it later!!

P.S., the fans of the show have been awesome thus far, everyone is so supportive… and it’s been amazing having so many friends and family come out to see me, it’s truly a blessing to have this much support in my career!!!

Love, Kyle

Alright… I was so exhausted after last weekend, I didn’t even want to reflect on the awesomeness that was the last week of rehearsal. Quick Recap – As it always happens in show biz, the show must go on, and we were all super sad that about 3 hours before our first full preview run with a Clemson audience, one of our main dancers and the production staff decided that he should heal his extremely sore knee and save it for the actual tour. He’s a big guy and always has a really strong attitude about him, but we could all see how bummed he was that he was going to have to sit out the first two full runs with an audience (but everything’s ok, he saw his doctor this week, and he’s cleared to put his dancing shoes back on!!). The even more amazing part about this story, is that the male dance swing in our show is AWESOME!!!.. He had literally only been taking notes and practicing dance steps on his own (what the swings are supposed to do) and he had everything down so well that after only 3 hours of preparation he KILLED both shows we did last weekend. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen – these dancers are just amazing… one day, maaaybe I’ll be a quarter as good as them, after I take a few years of classes hahaha… yyyyyeeeeaaa, not gonna happen, I’ll just keep training my voice 🙂

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I have literally been anxious in anticipation of writing this next story for you guys… Yesterday I had the greatest, most confusing, most exhausting, and most inspiring moment of my life thus far. I hit a new milestone in my development as an actor, and with that triumph comes the next level of challenges and the next era of growth.

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So I’m sitting in my hotel room on dinner break from our tech rehearsals watching Aaron Rodgers slash the Broncos to death, and I am exhausted, haha. Since we got to Clemson, South Carolina on thursday night we have been in rehearsal 11 hours a day…. Our set is AMAZING!!! It’s the most intricate set I’ve ever been on and the attention to detail is spectacular. Everything down to a real fake ATM machine in the bodega, actual hair products in the salon, it’s crazy… We have about three more days of tedious step by step movement to get the lighting program set, and then we have our first preview performance for a small audience on Clemson’s campus on friday night. It’s just ridiculous that we’ve gone from meeting each other to legitimately show ready in only 3 and a half weeks, and if you get to see the show, you’ll see just how ridiculous an accomplishment that is, since this show is very detailed. But I can tell you that it’s starting to get to everyone as right now I’m the only person awake in my room, with 4 people passed out throughout the room hahaha… Time for me to go grab an Emergen-C and head back to the theatre, everyone is getting the sniffles around here, which is nooooo bueno for me, I have to control notes at the upper end of my register and being sick would make that quiiiiite difficult… P.S. way to blow the game Cowboys… ugh…

Love, Kyle

Hey!!!

This week has been ridiculous… we’re finally getting to the point where we’re no longer learning new choreography and actually getting a chance to go over things and pull them together. All of that is amazing, but then as we’re all sweaty and gasping for air, everyone under the sun from the original Broadway show is popping into the rehearsals. Quiara, the book writer, rolled in one day, as well as a buuuunch of people from the 1st national tour. It’s always awesome when they come in and still remember the choreo and just hop in on the rehearsals and show us just how unique the choreo has to look to in order to be the same quality as the original show that won the 2008 Tony Award for best musical.
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Woooooow… I was not ready for the work out these rehearsals are. Thank goodness for this day off, or I think my quads and back would stop working, lol. So far so good tho, we’ve completely choreographed the opening number and are almost done with 96,000. The coolest thing about this choreography is it’s a great combination of real dance and exaggerated every day movement, so you’re moving almost thematically instead of musically, and yea that’s the best way I can describe it. There is one combination that I just cannot get yet, I’m still workin on it, but the dance rhythms do not line up with the words I’m singing at all, and it is just kickin my ass… but like all challenges, I will complete it lol

We had our first full read/sing through of the show on friday and it was just absolutely amazing. Everyone is already pouring their characters into everything, so there were tears and laughs and happiness and sadness pumping through. By the end of the run we were all so amped that the studio front desk people had to walk over and remind us that we didn’t own the whole studio and that other people were also rehearsing. At that point in time, I could’ve cared less. If it were up to me, we would’ve walked into all the other rooms and completely ended their rehearsals so they could hear us sing… it was thaaat good. And that’s only after a week. A bunch of us went out for drinks and food right after, and we were still so amped that we pulled the classic and utterly annoying for any one who isn’t a musical theatre person move of singing songs from the show at the table in the middle of TGI Fridays… the way I see it, they got a free preview, so they should be happy about it, lol… if you can’t tell I am still crazy amped from yesterday :-)… And the official tour website is up now too, it doesn’t have all the dates on it, so keep referring to my tour date list on this website for the correct tour dates and locations, but it looks awesome

Hey everyone!!!

I’m sitting in a rehearsal room right now listening to my buddy Robert Ramirez, who will be playing Sonny in the show, play the song Breathe on the piano to help one of the other cast members work on his ensemble notes. When I said a few of these people were talented the other day, I take that back… everyone is frickin awesome. In our first day of rehearsal our producer made sure to make it a point that we all throw the term “non-equity” out the window because they are putting SERIOUS money behind this show and will be ensuring that we hold the same standard that both the broadway and first national tour had. What made it even more of a compliment to us all was when Alex Lacamoire, aka Tony award winning orchestrator, looked at us and said that they literally traveled all over the country for over two months to find the BEST possible performers and orchestra… It gave me goosebumps and made me appreciate my own hard work for the first time since booking the gig… I put that moment of proudness aside, cuz it was time to get to work!!!
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Well well well… after an AWFUL day of travel on Wednesday and spending most of the day Thursday worrying about whether my mom’s basement was going to flood cuz our sump pump was clogged and in rained 8 inches… I’m finally in NEW YORK and chillin at Starbucks 45 minutes before my first rehearsal 🙂

So far so good, I met a bunch of the cast members yesterday and we all hung out and walked around getting to know eachother, and of course I had to make it as difficult as possible for myself by not going to drop my luggage off at the house I’m staying at. Yup, I walked all over the place with my bookbag, laptop bag, suitbag, and big ass suitcase, looking like a noob tourist the entire time. After watching me balance these things for about 10 blocks my cast mates insisted that they help me out… Good people, and good family already. I can already tell that I’m gonna have to be on top of my game every second because some of these people are frickin’ talented.
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Hey everyone!!!… So my buddy Andrew and I have been collaborating diligently and are happily launching numero dos of the Kyle Robert Carter website. It couldn’t have come at a more perfect time as I just got back to Los Angeles from an awesome trip up to New York City that yielded my biggest booking to date – the role of Benny in the Non-Equity National Tour of “In The Heights”!!! :-)… As I travel throughout the year, I want to keep everyone updated with the show dates, progress of the trip, and obviously any funny or interesting things that happen!!
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