RISE & SHINE
Carter’s little Yorkie, Sade (like the singer), wakes him up around 7:30 a.m. He takes the dog out and then plans for three days ahead of time. First, he processes what he has to do for his full time job. Then he thinks about what the theater needs. He works on marketing, promoting the theater and his music on social media. He fine tunes the schedule of improv classes and replies to email inquiries.
From there Carter is ready to start his day’s work. “My main thing is I’m a Cyber Security instructor at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patt. I got my degree in Computer Science and I’ve been doing cyber security engineering (for military aircrafts) for about seven years. So that’s my 9-5,” says Carter. Pre-pandemic he traveled to instruct engineers at bases across the country, but now that he teaches virtually from home in Beavercreek, he can instruct and create course content while squeezing in theater work. Carter teaches through lunch until 5 when he heads over to the Black Box.
YES, AND …
As a kid, Carter gravitated toward “Saturday Night Live,” but his favorite parts were the bloopers more than the scripted sketches. When he started taking improv, it “just clicked.” Carter became co-owner of Black Box in 2018, but COVID-19 forced the theater to close its doors for three years. He fully took over the theater and, in the summer of 2021, the improv community came out to help clean it up for re-opening. Carter runs the Wednesday improv night and performs on Fridays. “I love being here so whenever I can walk into this theater, I’m here.”
Today Carter arrives earlier than usual, at 2, to make sure the first day of “Kidprov” goes smoothly. A group of teenagers are on stage for the Black Box’s firstsummer camp “to teach kids improv and communication and listening. I tell people all the time, ‘Your best friends are the ones you can laugh with.’” The camp culminates in a performance for family and friends. “Community is normally what improv is based off. We want the community aspect to be the biggest part of this theater.” To that end, Carter has also created Small Business Saturdays at Black Box. Co-workers will come and do improv together as a bonding experience. The first business they hosted was nearby Barrel House.
SAFEHOUSE
At 3 p.m., Carter heads to the recording studio to work on his music for an hour. For the past three years he has been coming to Safehouse Music Studios on Webster Street where his friend Dre Manuel is producer. Carter writes and performs hip hop under the stage name K.Carter, writing most lyrics in his head while driving and squeezing in time at the studio. He has been rapping seriously for a decade and has put out four albums. Carter and friend TINO have a group called Safe Money, and he also collaborates with The Pack, which includes Manuel, Vanae Iesha, Queen Samantha and Ronald Frost.
At the studio, Manuel is sitting at the mixing board in front of two large monitors. They chat briefly before Carter heads into the recording booth. Right now he is working out part of a song that tells a story about a mother and son. As Carter is in the booth working on his verse, Queen Samantha arrives to record a monologue that Manuel will cut into Carter’s song. Watching these friends throw ideas back and forth and tell a story through music has many parallels to improv.
ONE WORD SUGGESTION
Around 4 p.m., Carter will leave the studio session and head back to the theater or to his other job, bartending at Eudora Brewing Company on Wilmington Pike. At the theater, Carter just put in a bar and received a liquor license, and Eudora is supplying a custom brew, a raspberry wheat ale called “One Word Suggestion”. (Most improv shows start with the performers asking the audience for one word suggestions they can use to inspire their act.) “All of our beer that we’ll have that we name ourselves and brew from Eudora will have an improv-themed name. So when people come up and order they say, ‘Can I get a one word suggestion?’” Carter plans to serve a revolving selection of local beers supporting Dayton businesses. Next they will be supplied a beer from Dayton Beer Company.
TEAM WHOLE FOODS
Carter likes to cook but is challenged to find the time, and declares himself “Team Whole Foods”, where he picks up a protein, rice and vegetable for dinner. “I’m still in the process to efficiently find ways to cook healthy,” he says. He likes to eat clean and is seeing a nutritionist, lifts weights 3 or 4 days a week at Higher Athletic Fitness in Centerville, and goes to the Body Garage near Black Box where he participates in “body regeneration,” which is a type of recovery for the body and mind. He continues, “What drives me is that process of getting better through anything. When it comes to teaching someone improv, that process of watching them learn, watching them get better - I love that feeling.”
SEINFELD & SLEEP
Carter closes up the theater at 10 p.m. and then the crew goes to the Barrel House for drinks. Afterward, he heads home, hangs out with Sade the Yorkie and watches old episodes of “Seinfeld,” falling asleep around 1 a.m.
Kevin Carter can be found on Instagram @sonofhiphop.
Black Box Theater is open for improv shows Wednesday-Saturday.
More info on tickets and classes at daytonblackboximprov.com.
Contact this writer at hannah.kasper@gmail.com.
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