Back in May of 1994, Kyle was in the Roundabout Theater Company's production of PICNIC, the classic summer romance by pulitzer prize-winning playwright, William Inge. Kyle played the role of hunky Hal Carter, a drifter who blows through a small kansas town one summer and forever changes the lives of it's inhabitants. I saw him do hal in that production that May.
In the story, Hal falls in love with his college pal's girl and she with him. love, fights, mayhem and nude torsos follow (kyles!!). he did a pretty nice job. was lacking the raw animal magnetism required for the role. he came off as a bit too "jeff metcalfe" for Hal. the role is written as more of a stud horse who's sporting rippled musculature. but kyle looked pretty good and did quite nicely. i felt that certain of his moments could have been a touch more impassioned, but his Hal was rather touching and nice.
Other cast members in that same production included Ashley Judd as madge owens, the prettiest girl in town that Hal falls for and runs off with (I didn't care for her performance much, frankly), tate donovan was alan seymour - madge's jilted beau, polly holiday of ALICE and stage fame as madge's mom, flo owens.
My pals and i are also actors and i adore the plays of William Inge, so it was great catching this wonderful summer confection - LIVE!!!!!. no one does PICNIC much anymore, so we boogied to buy tickets and then were pleased to hear that kyle would be taking his crack at HAL. (I also produced & directed a production of PICNIC in the summer of '99.)
Anyway, we have a tendancy to lag behind after we see plays, hang out, chat with others, discuss the play, etc. So, on this warm spring eve, we were the last to leave the theater. we were discussing Inge and as we walked down a long spiral staircase from the theater itself down to the main lobby, i was surprised to see kyle walking right in front of me on the stairwell!! well, i have loved him since HOMEFRONT, but I retained my cool. we all continued our convo. he was in jeans, a henley and had a knapsack slung over his shoulder. we all just walked and chatted around him. he was about 5' 8"/5'9" and like most cast members do, was just going home after a long night. i ended up walking beside him at one point and snuck a private glance poripherally. well, kyle was just lovely to look at. in the lobby, before he jammed, i quickly introduced myself and said that i enjoyed his work a great deal that evening. he seemed very touched and surprised. "Really?", he asked. "Yes", I said, "there are many layers to Hal, and you seemed to hit a lot of it quite nicely." "Wow. What a nice thing to say", he replied and gave me this ENORMOUS, warm smile. "Thank you for such a nice compliment." He shook my hand and he walked off through Times Square to his NYC apt. We all were pleased to see that he appeared "real", down-to-earth, and approachable. I was bummed to learn on your site that he's married with kids, but that's Murphy's Law, isn't it? Just wanted to share this other resume credit info and my little encounter tale with you and your readers.
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