Monthly Archives

February 2012

in Blog

I’m still alive, I promise, lol

Hey everyone!!

I know it’s been a looong time since I posted, but we have been ridiculously busy since we started back up at the beginning of this month. We’re at Indiana University right now and this is probably one of maybe 3 days this entire month that I haven’t had to be at the theatre for some kind of rehearsal or on the bus or train all day. We’re at the half way point of the tour, and as with all long running shows, curve balls and changes occur. Thus we are having crazy amounts of rehearsals to make sure all understudies are prepped and ready to go and we’ve even brought in a new ensemble member to help out.

The two craziest and funniest things to have happened this month… 1 – in Huntington, WV, at Marshall University, we had a 9 AM SHOW (I’m NOT a fan of waking up early to sing, lol) for elementary and middle school kids…… for those of you who haven’t seen or heard the show, it is definitely not elementary school friendly, with curse words and innuendo; it is certainly a PG-13 style show. Thus we spent a few hours on a couple of different days preparing for the show, making slight language edits. One of my lines, “The drivers, dirty bastards!!!” was turned to “The drivers, dirty rascals!!!” hahaha… it was a really fun show actually, and though a lot of the show went over the little kids heads, it was interesting to move around on stage trying to remember what lines to edit. There was only one slip up, and one of the characters said “Damn”, and right on cue the little kids giggled and “oooooo”ed… too cute.

2 – The other day in Springfield, OH, I had a hilarious mishap occur. About a week prior, our little radio in the dispatch area broke and the earphone wire came loose during a sound check. For that week we just tied the wire down and went about our business of the show. Well, our props master decided to fix it this day in Ohio and forgot to let me know. So I’m in the middle of “Benny’s Dispatch” both rapping and singing, and all the sudden I look in my right hand and the  earphone  wire is dangling in mid air… not attached to the radio. In the middle of rapping, I confusedly laid it down on the counter top, only to realize the wire was covered in wet super glue… and for about 2 seconds I was STUCK to the dangling wire. I quickly shook it off, and went about the rest of the song with no ear piece, just rapping and singing into the radio. When the song ended we pulled the counter top back in from the spotlight, and sure enough the super glue wasn’t dry and that’s why the ear piece came out. I quickly tied the wire back on the way it was gerry-rigged before, but not without covering all of my fingers in super glue… I spent the entire rest of the first act rubbing my fingers together trying to get super glue off… the audience had to think I was crazy hahaha… thus it goes.

Well, off I go to the theatre again… for just another day!!! (That’s for all the Next To Normal fans, like me)

Peace and Love

in Press

Toronto review: “Carter is eminently watchable”

by Cate Kustanczy – February 14, 2012. Toronto

“There are a few stand-out performances that do leave an impression however, among them the magnetic Kyle Carter as Benny. Blending youthful earnestness and adult determination, Carter is eminently watchable, his rich, soulful sound frequently soaring above his co-stars and offering a heartfelt portrait of a young man at odds in his world.”

Continue reading

in Blog

Communication is the Key to this game!!!

Hey everybody!!!

Ok, so normally I have great and funny stories to share, but this time I’d like to take a slightly more serious approach. What I feel like sharing transcends the “theatre” world and is something that every single one of us deals with on a daily basis; sometimes we forget that our heads are attached to our necks and keep walking with our common sense left behind, lol

I think one of the most powerful statements that our director gave us in rehearsal (he having been a part of this show from off-Broadway, to Broadway, and on the first National tour) is that the fun and excitement of being on tour and performing a show is a roller coaster. There will be days when everything is amazing, and there will be days where you can’t stand anybody and still expected to perform at a high level. Well, our wonderful group definitely hit a morale low this past week in Alabama, and before I dive into my thoughts on the situation, I will say that not a single person in the audience knew the difference. We still performed our butts off despite the limbo bar of morale being too low for many of us to make it under.

Trust and communication. I laugh to myself sometimes how these two words come out of everyone’s mouth as two of the most important factors in human relationship, yet I find that well over 50% of people are not able to practice what they preach. Through observation, it is easy to make the conclusion that more often than not it comes down to the fear of confrontation. What is everyone scared of?… This is the rhetorical question to be asked because I have found, and any one who’s reading this blog that knows my mother can attest I got this mentality from her, that the quicker you are able to articulate problems and concerns that require delicate confrontation, the quicker a well versed decision can be made, and the less time you waste in worry, anxiety, anger, or contempt. If you are attempting to travel through life with the purpose of avoiding the tenseness of confrontation, you might as well put shackles on your feet and tip-toe around everyone as they watch you with brows furrowed wondering what the heck your problem is (and everyone at one point or another has looked someone in the eye and said, “why don’t you just tell them ____________?”). In many animal species you will encounter confrontation – over territory, over food, over resources, over mating, etc… and to me, the fact that human beings have the wherewithal to formulate a comprehensive argument through language, we should have no excuse to shy away from confrontation. Could you imagine a world where when we had a problem with each other we lowered our heads and tried to ram each other until one of us passed out? (That would actually be kind of funny, now that I think about it, haha)

Continue reading

Close